My Addled Brain

I realize I’m tempting fate just by posting this. But I have to gloat.

This site has officially been spam-free for a month.

That’s right - no comment spam, no referer spam, no spam eggs sausage and spam, no spam spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam and spam…

Sorry. Bloody vikings. At any rate, I have two completely invaluable tools to thank for this happy state of affairs: Spam Karma 2.0 and Referer Karma, both created by Dr. Dave. If you use Wordpress, absolutely MUST install these two utilities at your earliest convenience - this means you, Tommy. When I first installed it, I used to get near daily e-mails telling me what spammers had attempted to post on my site. It caught them, and saved them for me to peruse at my leisure, so I could decide whether to keep them or dump them.

I say used to, because it occurred to me today that I hadn’t seen one of these emails in a while. So, I went to double check, and sure enough, I haven’t had any commenters get through in 30 days. After all my recent issues in dealing with these losers, I like knowing I’ve scored one in the “win” column. So, grab it, use it, love it. You won’t be sorry.

In an effort to become The Madre’s understudy in all things martyred, I decided to inflict some lower back pain on myself. One hot, muggy trip to Busch Gardens (complete with hour long ride lines, roving bands of fierce touristas, and the always enjoyable breakdown of the new roller coaster the first time I get a chance to ride it) later, and mission accomplished! I’ve spent my last three mornings trying to figure out exactly the best way to apply soap to anything below the knees - I’ve got the rest covered, TYVM - with varying degrees of success. Fortunately, my chair at work is a $50 wonder of ergonomic economy, so my day usually clears up nicely. Perhaps my issue lies with the office chair I have in my home, which I believe I acquired from the Institute for the Study of Advanced Scoliosis during a fire sale.

Thankfully, I have Teh One, who can perform some of my less important decision making needs, such as what we’re going to watch on television tonight. Since she’s already taken efforts to spam my comments, as well as my own inbox (you didn’t think she’s only this obsessive in commentland, do you?), I guess I know what I’ll be watching at 10pm EST - assuming my cable is up. It’s been up and down the last couple of days, I assume in protest over having a large, exposed coil of cable in my front yard for, oh, about eight months now. But I digress.

A replacement chair, to luxuriate in while planning world domination, will be forthcoming today. I already have a selection in mind; although, it doesn’t look very comfortable. Not to mention I couldn’t find one at Staples.

The doctors had been telling her that the years of taking steroids to help fight the rheumatoid arthritis had been weakening her bones. That she was losing mass in her vertebrae. That screws and a clamshell plate had to be installed. That they may have to permanently attach a bone growth stimulator, a sure-fire hit at airport metal detectors everywhere.

So, after consulting with several doctors, The Madre went under the knife Monday morning.

Things were supposed to get started at 7:30am; but as I later learned, the beginning of surgery was delayed. That didn’t help me much on Monday, however. The fact that I had spent some time with her the night before barely seemed to matter. I was tense and nervous all day - and Teh One knew this. Between phonecalls to and from her, and phonecalls to and from MCG, we had not a lick of information about her status until about 12:30, when Teh One, in a fit of brilliance (of which she is occasionally prone to), decided to call the hospital and find out her status: still in surgery.

I finally got a call around 2:30pm; my cousin calling to say she was out of surgery. But no more information than that. Then, the Garnet & Gold Baron called up 30 minutes later. The doctor had told him the surgery went well, and she would be in post-op for the next couple hours before being moved to her room.

Relief washed over me, but concerns lingered - and didn’t go away when, just minutes from the hospital later that day, G&GB called back to say he had seen her, and she was in pain and extremely tired, and perhaps we should delay our visit until the next day. I was reluctant to do so, but knowing she would be willing to fight through excruciating pain to stay up long enough to say hello to us, I realized that would be best. MCG, who had already arrived in the mazelike bowels of the hospital; wandering the corridors like some poor sacrifice to the Minotaur, got a phonecall from me thereafter. He too went home, never having found either of them.

I finally saw her yesterday, after work. MCG had already been by earlier in the day, bringing with him that gift that keeps on giving: circus peanuts (a Madre favorite). She got the flowers we sent her. She was in good spirits, despite the obvious pain she was in. We talked some, but we spent most of the time just being there. She slept a bit. Later, her doctor came by and discussed how things were going with her. He also spoke with us - in addition to the clamshell and the screws, they also replaced two of her discs, which were gone. We decided to leave shortly after that, telling her we knew we’d be going just as the party was starting. She smiled, as she had several times since we arrived. We both kissed her goodbye, and I told her I love her.

She’ll be in the hospital for at least a few more days before spending some quality time at Shotty Lotty’s, where she will be carted from place to place on the backs of their herd of pugs until she recovers. This may take her a while. But it was clear to me, even yesterday, that she plans or getting herself as well as she can.

She’s a fighter. But that was never really clear to me until yesterday.

I’m probably reading more into the following statistic than I should, but it makes me happy all the same. Weekend sales of HPatHBP clocked in at 6.9 million in the first 24 hours of sale, valued at over $100 million. This makes it more successful than both of the highly anticipated new movie releases over the weekend combined.

So, why should I get all worked up over book sales? Because as I grow older, I find myself becoming a bigger and bigger advocate of reading, especially reading and children. MCG can tell you this firsthand - I think we’ve given the Princess some type of book (or books) for both birthdays and Christmas since she’s had them. And she’ll continue to get them. And I plan on reading to mine, should they ever decide to sprout out of the ground one of these days. (I’m already regretting even mentioning this, as I’m sure Teh One will be all over it within second of being read by her).

I’d run down a list of benefits, but I’ve exceeded my bullet point quota for the next few months with all my previous lists. But here’s a few resouces on reading to peruse.

Of them all, my favorite reason to promote reading to children is it promotes intelligent thought - well, it does as long as you’re not reading them anything by Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or Al Franken. Getting children to think critically about books leads them to think critically about life, and allows them to take even the most biased information and put it into a sensible context (or reject it outright when it’s not sensible).

As for the book itself: I got home with it about 3 pm on Saturday, and was done by 2am that night. The book itself felt a bit rushed. Despite that, it was good overall (it must’ve been, I hardly put the thing down after I opened it), with a few actual moments I laughed out loud, more than a few revelations, and even more unanswered questions. But you can see the end in sight now. Rowlings says she’ll start working on the final book, “Harry Potter and the Return of the Jedi”, sometime next year, after taking the rest of the year off to spend with her daughter. Must be nice…

Oh, if you haven’t finished the book yet, I suggest you watch where you surf - spoilers are everywhere.

Whaddaya wanna do with your life?

I ain’t gonna lie to you - I’m getting HPatHBP this weekend. I’ve had it reserved for several weeks now. Not because I’m worried I won’t get a copy, but because I’m a cheap bastard, and reserving = 40% off cover price. So, I’ll be diving into some literary goodness this weekend.

I understand there have been some issues surrounding these books coming to market early. These things happen, although it appears some of the purchasers are acting honorably and returning them.

However, none of that matters if you are in Canada. Apparently, 14 books were sold there when they were stocked on the shelf accidentally. If one of you fair readers happen to be one of the “lucky” 14 (odds against: approx. eight hundred gazillion to one), I suggest you take that illegally purloined tome and lock it up until midnight tonight - because the publisher has obtained a John Doe injunction preventing anyone from even reading their copies until then. That’s right - according to a British media lawyer, “There is no human right to read.”

I beg your fucking pardon?

Granted, we live in the USA, where our personal rights and freedoms are vigilantly guarded by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. At least, until they are slowly whittled away by those who use fear as the impetus to remove you from the protections that truly make this country what it is. But between the horrendous state of the Patent system, both here and abroad, in regards to intellectual property and the general public’s complete and utter lack of interest/knowledge on the subject, you’ll lose your freedoms to corporations a lot sooner than you will from terrorists.

Good lord, I sound like a Marxist. Which is not the case here - viva la free enterprise! But corporate interests are starting to step over the line, and putting their rights in front of yours. The RIAA doesn’t hate mp3s because of concerns over pirates (although, that is a reason, and their most legally-defensible one) - they hate them because they want to dictate how you, the consumer, use their product. Things like DVD region codes seem innocuous at first, but when you have a DVD from overseas that you can’t purchase with a US-region code because they don’t make one with it, you’re pretty much screwed unless you buy a region-free DVD player (who’s legal status in this country is questionable at best) or shell out another $100 bucks to buy a second DVD player that plays discs from that region! Yes, consumer choice is alive and well here, folks.

I bring this up because Ubergeek got some region 2 DVDs from the UK, thanks to his kickass British girlfriend. He showed me some of one, from the first season of Spaced - a hilarious show which should be seen by everyone immediately, hop to it. He, himself, bought a player that plays both region 1 and 2 discs, so he has no issues with this. But if I wanted to borrow said DVD for viewing purposes, I have no way to do this on my own. None. And there’s no way around it unless I want to pay more money for duplicate hardware so I can watch a DAMN TV SHOW.

And I feel this is just the tip of the iceberg. If something isn’t done to stem the tide, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that you’ll have to pay a fee to Amana every time you use your microwave to warm up some water for tea, citing some obscure patent that would have gotten laughed out of court twenty years ago. But until interests in Washington stop being so corporation-friendly (and you’ll find this behavior on both sides of the aisle), this won’t change, unless the public stands up and takes notice.

But what are the odds of that happening? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. Now pass the remote, I want to listen to my copy-protected CD of the Foo Fighters.

Fantastic Four

A bad sitcom with
killer effects. Chiklis makes
it all not suck. Much.

Enjoyable, but mostly forgettable. Still much better than Daredevil, the bottom of the barrel of superhero movies.

1. Download Google Earth and install it.
3. Profit.

Ok, there’s probably not much profit in this. But you will become addicted - especially when you realize those buildings downtown are in 3D…

Well, you will unless you’re Teh One - unfortunately, she’s far too practical for this sort of thing.

And if that’s not all, Gax has more on Google’s march toward world dominance. Personally, I think Google will have an operating system within the next couple of years. Seriously.

Every time I try to post, they keep pulling me back in.

Full plate these last two weeks, and most likely for the near future. I know I’ve hinted vaguely at ominous plans and future endeavours, but this is here and now, and I’m up to my eyeballs in webby goodness, people. I direct your attention to the fine list of links located in the sidebar - I would use a hand gesture to do so, but this being a written medium, you’ll just have to figure out for yourself what fingers might be involved in such an action. What, I gotta do everything around here? Fine, fine.

Gax has new digs. They’re remarkably similar to the old digs, except not as impossible to read in Firefox, and the new server isn’t nearly as prone to Rot13 text at random - something I always figured was a feature, not a bug. But what do I know?

Andy’s been writing while on his meds again. Either that, or he’s gotten more cryptic the longer he stays in Gainesville. You Decide™.

Kate (may I call you Kate? Catherine Durkin Robinson just contributes to my impending case of repetitive stress injury, and calling you CDR might confuse people who come here for my lively and informative tech discussions) is taking the proverbial family vacation. No word on whether they managed to find a family truckster or if they’re being followed by Christy Brinkley, but at least they have gas.

New (to me) blog Random_Speak has everything I could want in a blog - geek women, retro pictures, and, of course, reader surveys. I feel tingly for some reason.