31 May, 2006
OK, enough of the "heavy" stuff!
Seagull Silhouette
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.
I need a break from the "broken heart" business! So here's a recent piccie.
This is one of the coolest things I've ever discovered! One afternoon, the nice Harbor Bay Ferry deckhand let us Alameda/Oakland riders head down the dock to wait for our boat which was just about to dock (usually, we wait up top outside of the gate). I looked up and saw these orange-y triangles plodding across the rooftop. It took me a couple of moments to realize that I was watching a seagull walking across the roof.
When I was next down the dock with a loaded camera, I was lucky enough that the sun was out, so not only did I get the orange feet, but also a really cool silhouette of the seagull.
So, if you find yourself at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, awaiting a ferry at either Gate E or Gate B, look up on your way to the boat (but be careful to not trip or walk off the end of the dock!).
~~ victoria on 8:40 PM ~~ 1 comments
30 May, 2006
To (finally) be honest
The last shred of hope I held in my heart
was a blank page in my diary
that I was going to write our story on.
You smiled warmly at me while you tore
that page from my heart.
You looked into my eyes and you wrote
"I Love You" on the page.
And then...
And then you gave that page
to someone else.
And now...
And now I can breathe,
free (at last) from the burden
of that last shred of hope.
And now...
And now I am going to liberate myself
from the final lie of our friendship acquaintance.
I'll say the words that you were
too nice?
too cowardly?
too confused?
too cruel?
to say. (But I know it's what you meant.)
Good bye.
Technorati Tags: broken heart, gratitude
~~ victoria on 10:01 PM ~~ 0 comments
Furniture shifting: Follow-up
Well, as you have likely surmised from the previous two posts, my change in ISPs and Web host went pretty smoothly, with just the one glitch with Blogger. The DSL was supposed to be switched on today, but when I hooked everything up on Saturday, it was already live (Yay!).
Now I just need to figure out how to get Buster (the iMac) to see the internet when I connect through a router. Everything *looks* ok--all appropriate lights on the router are lit--but no internet. The iMac sees the internet just dandy when hooked directly to the DSL modem, so somewhere along the line I'm missing the "secret handshake" or have some conflict. Or something. But it sure would be nice to be able to have the iMac wired and have the old Airport base station hooked in so that I can use Hamish (the iBook) around the apartment.
Next up is getting VisualCues re-imagined and re-built. Stay tuned...
LISTENING: You Have Killed Me from the album "Ringleader of the Tormentors" by Morrissey
Technorati Tags: site updates, upgrading
~~ victoria on 9:21 PM ~~ 0 comments
29 May, 2006
Dear Blogger
Would you PLEASE write error messages that are useful? I've spent FOUR DAYS trying to sort out why my blog wouldn't publish. Every time I tweaked my FTP settings and attempted to publish my blog I'd get the following error:
"Your blog is under maintenance. Please try again after some time."
So, I'd wait "some time" and try again. Same error. I'd wait Some More Time, read the Blogger-help forums, do some more tweaking and try again. Same error. FOR FOUR DAYS!!! An email to Blogger Help got me the old Response O'Matic email.
Finally, in complete desperation, I dug way into the forum and found out that the problem isn't so much that my blog is "under maintenance." It's that I hadn't updated the FTP information for the blog, the archives and the site feed. OK, so that's a "well DUH!" to me (and I gave myself the appropriate slap to the head).
But, really, why have an utterly useless message about my blog being under maintenance when the message should be "your archive/site feed/blog information is incorrect" or some such. At least that would have given me an IDEA of all the places to tweak 'n' test.
Geesh!
Sincerely,
Vicster
Technorati Tags: ranting, site updates
~~ victoria on 8:34 PM ~~ 0 comments
28 May, 2006
Huaaaemmm Hem!
Just testing things out, post-move. I think the move to Laughing Squid went just fine, but it's Blogger that's horking up a hairball right now.
Crossing fingers and hitting "Publish"...
Oh, cute. It seems I can get things from Ecto to Blogger, but Blogger still refuses to publish new posts.
I am So Not Amused.
~~ victoria on 5:36 PM ~~ 0 comments
23 May, 2006
Furniture shifting
There are changes afoot. First among them will be service and hosting changes. Hopefully, these changes will be nearly completely transparent to you and nearly completely painless to me. But, just in case, I've got piles of pillows to punch (and scream into) at the ready. The rest of you are on your own.
Technorati Tags: upgrading
~~ victoria on 9:25 PM ~~ 0 comments
15 May, 2006
...and I have a hunch about what section it started in
Evidently it was indeed true that a large contingent of Neanderthal Sharks Fans booed the Canadian national anthem prior to last night's game. And, considering that San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales felt the need to issue an "official" apology, it was actually as bad as the story I linked to made it sound.
My friend Chuq also had this to say on the matter.
Short of the country having recently nuked someone, I don't want to hear ANY excuses for booing the national anthem of another country! It doesn't matter if Edmonton fans MAY have booed "The Star Spangled Banner". If that's true, then you had the chance to show how much classier Sharks fans are, but I guess that would require too high a level of maturity and critical thinking and it's just easier to chug another beer and act like an idiot. So you thought you were supporting your beloved Sharks by booing "O Canada", did it ever occur to you that HALF OF YOUR TEAM IS CANADIAN???
Full props to those fans who sang "O Canada" as loud as they could to try and drown out the ignoramuses. It thoroughly pisses me off that good people like my friends Chuq and Laurie were so embarrassed by that incident that they felt the need to apologize.
What a shame that they can't hand out a healthy dose of perspective along with those "rally towels" at the gates.
LISTENING: Motorway To Roswell from the album "Trompe Le Monde" by Pixies
Technorati Tags: ranting
~~ victoria on 8:49 PM ~~ 0 comments
14 May, 2006
WTF???
I hope someone who attended tonight's Sharks/Oilers playoff game can tell me that this is not true, or at least not as bad as this story makes it sound.
Though booing ANY country's national anthem is truly beneath contempt. Shame on anyone who was that classless!
Technorati Tags: ranting
~~ victoria on 9:24 PM ~~ 0 comments
Dreaming of Yesteryear
Dreaming of Yesteryear
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.
I've recently started having my archived 6x6 film scanned to CDs (the uncut rolls, anyway).
This shot is from around a year ago. I took it with the Holga; as you can see I was still battling mightily with those parallax issues.
Still, I think having more sky than I intended works in this photo. This way, we don't see the platform the jet is anchored to in the image, so it looks free to take off for one more ride. For old time's sake.
~~ victoria on 6:25 PM ~~ 0 comments
Dear SFGate Headline Writers
Am I the only reader who thought your "Woman Kidnapped As Tot Found" was a story about a woman who was kidnapped at the same time a child (her child?) was found?
You're not constrained by point and column sizes when writing headlines for the Web like you are in print: Surely you can lengthen your headlines just a bit so they're a little more clear. Simply dropping an "A" between As and Tot would have made a world of difference. Or is it too expensive to buy a vowel these days?
Sincerely,
Victoria
Technorati Tags: ranting
~~ victoria on 5:25 PM ~~ 0 comments
Dear Apple Computer
Thank you for the last Tiger Update. Since I've updated to 10.4.6 (and, by default, iSync 2.2), I can no longer sync my Sony Ericsson S710a phone in iSync, nor can I add back the device (foolishly thinking maybe I should just delete and add it again).
Please do whatever you have to do to fix the iSync "update" so that it will work with my phone once more. NOW!!!
That is all.
Sincerely,
Victoria
UPDATE: I'm not sure exactly which event is responsible, but after a series of restarting the phone, downloading and installing the latest update (though that was a security update...whatever) and restarting the iMac, all devices seem to be on speaking terms once more. Yay!
Technorati Tags: Mac OS 10.4, ranting, upgrading
~~ victoria on 5:19 PM ~~ 0 comments
13 May, 2006
I can't even pin this caper on the cat
Nope, this one was all me. I started off my day by dumping my glass of water in my keyboard. Say it with me, kids, D'OH!!! I watched it happen in slow motion, yet my reflexes proved equally slow, before I could get the glass upright again, the keyboard was drenched in approximately 10 oz. of water.
When it became obvious that my attempts at drying it would take way too long, I decided to just replace the keyboard. It was time, anyway...I was having a hell of a time with stubborn keys (I'd have to practically stand on the "e" to get it to type and the left "shift" key was just about hosed). This new Mac keyboard is nice and quiet compared to its exceedingly clacky predecessor.
I'm glad to be back in business. I was getting twitchy only being able to peruse Flickr on my tiny iBook screen.
Technorati Tags: upgrading
~~ victoria on 8:59 PM ~~ 0 comments
09 May, 2006
The "mid-term" exam is history
Almost time
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.
Tonight my History 7A class had its second "mid-term" exam. Hopefully, I've done well enough that the final (in two weeks) will be a moot point.
I really wanted to do an answer for the Jay Treaty, but when I started to write it, the trolls in my head started asking me if I wasn't confusing it with the Pickney treaty. When I got back to the car and pulled out my 3x5 study cards, I realized I was right all along and could (should) have given a good answer for that term.
Oh well.
~~ victoria on 8:22 PM ~~ 0 comments
08 May, 2006
What happens when my two favourite shows collide
Battlestar Galacticsimpsons.
Heh.
Thus ends the Homework Avoidance portion of my evening.
LISTENING: Tomorrow from the album "Your Arsenal" by Morrissey
Technorati Tags: Battlestar Galactica, humor
~~ victoria on 6:19 PM ~~ 0 comments
More...
OTHER THINKERS:
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
--Augusten Burroughs
