Catching up on my reading here at LJ.
And I find The Wild Hunt has had their eyes watching this one.

http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/10/bath-and-body-works-manager-doesnt-want-to-work-with-satanists.html

Spent the past 30 minutes reading all the entries around this. I will be supporting this boycott. No Bath & Body Works!


Add to that the kerfluffle over at Fort Hood and

http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/11/pagan-news-of-note-26.html

Again I ask myself, why do pagans serve this country? When Circle and others have to offer counseling because the US Military refuses to acknowledge THEIR religion, yet allows, encourages and in some cases enforces Christianity over all others. ... is it any wonder this nut job Muslim went whack on the base?

Military has a long history of dehumanizing the opponent. How else can you get "normal" men to pick up a gun and kill someone? Or do you not remember the Yellow skinned, buck teethed, slanty eyed gooks of Japan during WW2? or the greasy, fat, smelly Nazis? Maybe YOU don't. But I do. They still sold that bill of goods during the 1950's.

So while I am not sympathetic toward the killer in the Fort Hood incident, I am toward those that serve in a country that promotes racial and religious bigotry and selects ONE RELIGION OVER ALL OTHERS in DIRECT conflict with the Constitution of the United States.

Amendments to the Constitution:
Article [I.] Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This nut job Malik may have had one sensible statement brought forward in his early tenure: that of conscientious objector. Now he failed to do his, but if he thinks Muslims should be exempt of killing their own kind (and how many versions of THAT are there?) then what about Christians? maybe they should not serve either. Or how about pagans. TECHNICALLY Muslims are pagans. they are not Christians therefore they are pagans. how can you kill other pagans?

No doubt the Military and press will crucify this fellow, and pagans will be either ignored, or set to example as "godless devil worshipers".....

I still say, if you want to live in a christian country, move to England.

Mondays and Fridays are equal. Dreadful for the most part as, on Fridays, people try to the last minute to get done what should have been done before. And Mondays are the folks who delayed all day Friday and now have to wait until Monday.

Essentially we deal with people who are too stupid to do what the law tells them to do; or they feel/think they are above the law. So they get caught and drag their feet because "I have have to work. You stay open after 5 yeah?" And when told "No. We close at 5. After 5 you pay more." they go ballistic. Hey! If you had done what was right in the first place we wouldn't be having the conversation.

Remember folks, driving in the state of California is a PRIVILEGE, not a Right! You screw up, you PAY.

So, Monday and Friday are hell. But! A hell not of MY making. And on weekends, I don't even think about it.

But I guess somewhere in the auto upgrades, it sunk to crap. It no longer saves, it no longer converts and 90% of the time, it freezes. It's a known issue and the fix is ... frankly, not only expensive, but I'm not going there! Under no circumstances! (as in work online sans security?????)

So I decided to play with Windows Movie Maker for the first time.

I'll cut to keep you all from being bored. WARNING! Doll-i-tude ahead. Like, what ELSE would I try? Hamburgers?

( Doll Dreams )

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Heya guys. I'm replaying Shadow Hearts at the moment and I've tried putting up a timeline (with lots of help from Icaro.

I believe the game got a date wrong? Otherwise it doesn't make sense orz.

( cut for spoilers )
What do you guys think? Also, it's been a while since I've played these games so if any of the info I have put up in Yuri's entry is innacurate feel free to say so!

PS: If anyone recognizes the media some of Yuri's icons are from (some appear to be fanart or manga, I dunno) please tell me? I snagged most from other roleplay accounts so I have no idea where the original images are from.

I've sat on my hands since last week. Debating.

DDE (Denver Doll Emporium) announced a special from Dollzone (DZ) this year. Xmas babies. Now I am not into the itty bitties, but these are kinda cute. And I've been saving up for Hong since .... well, since I realized that "no way would Sabik" work out. Much as I love the guy. (Maybe someday)

Meanwhile, all this came to a head and yup. I clicked.





With the blue eyes I already have set aside in the box for him, this will be our Aneirin.

And I've noticed that my "wish list" gets longer. LOL

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

Good moments?
Bad moments?

I gave this some long and serious thought. But after about 15 minutes or so, my mind began to boggle. See, good was good and there is no going back. I do not want to relive something that was good XYZ amount of time ago because, likely, it was good because I was or am wearing rose coloured glasses.

Now the bad, that has temptations. But when you think about it, do you REALLY want to go back? Maybe change something?

The repercussions could be quite drastic.

Example:

1979 I met someone who turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. No matter how often I tried to shake this person it would not shake. Finally it took this person and her lover nearly killing me to get her pushed fully away. And guess what? Not five years down the road and she's knocking on my door again. (And you wonder why I don't tell folks where I live).

Now, I can see myself going back and nixing that initial meeting. Would take off of 2 seconds. But the fallout would be incredible.

I became involved in the Wicca because of meeting this person. (both a good thing and a bad thing)

I gained my freedom and independence from family as well as finding my feminist side and my backbone from meeting this person.

That's just 2 examples. Would I have improved as a human being had I not met this one? Can't say. But my gut feeling is, "I may have improved, but it would not have been in a good way". Now, if I could have by-passed the last few years of 'knowing' that person and all those Craft types, well, that would be a blessing. LOL

So, bottom line: would I?

No. Once you start messing with stuff the repercussions can change not just your life, but the lives around you. I have had (I hope) a possitive impact on some people because of those horride experiences. I would not like to think that my not getting here would have put these folks thru trials that my being around maybe helped mitigate.

How's that for obfuscation? LOL

From my Library Thing Review:

A journey into the improbably with a craft twist. If you don't "get" crochet you won't understand the craft side. Further, if you expect the police to act like police, investigators to act professional, then don't tread on this. You'll be disappointed. This is more a light romance with a very light mystery twist.

While that might sound like a pan, it is more a peg for the kind of book I found it to be. Read in just over a day, easy, pleasant in a silly way, a relief from the heavy historical research books I've read lately.

Would I recommend? Sure, for your crafty, crochet friends. Is it a good mystery? Nope. But with the quirky characters, semi-familiar locales to a California person, it is a fun read and worth a couple hours of your time.


_____
Having no idea what the genre "cozy" meant, I did a bit of research. I would hardly call Agatha a 'cozy mystery writer', the genre does seem to include her; as well as Sue Grafton.

To quote cozy-mystery.com, a cozy is:

The crime-solver in a cozy mystery is usually a woman who is an amateur sleuth. Almost always, she has a college degree, whether she is using it or not. Her education and life’s experiences have provided her with certain skills that she will utilize in order to solve all the crimes that are “thrown her way.” The cozy mystery heroine is usually a very intuitive, bright woman. The occupations of the amateur sleuths are very diverse: caterer, bed and breakfast owner, quilter, cat fancier/owner, nun, gardener, librarian, book store owner, herbalist, florist, dog trainer, homemaker, teacher, needlepoint store owner, etc. These are just a few examples of what the amateur sleuth does…. When she’s not solving crimes, that is!

So that's that. I have found some new books to enjoy. Short reads, took me probably 12 hours or so to read in total.


Note:
cover photograph, c. Betty Hechtman
at her web page:
http://www.bettyhechtman.com/

EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt