Instant Karma

I don't mean to sound compassionless, but I couldn't help but feel validated after seeing so much "do your homework before you comment here" and "read up" on Advanced Feminism at this formerly-great blog for that past year or two, only to see it dissolve into mayhem as the Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain made the same mistake the rest of us mortals are prone to doing.

Mary Daly, radical feminist theologian and philosopher, has died at age 81.

[...]

RIP Professor.

UPDATE: As Shaker IraeNicole first noted in comments, Daly's work was unfortunately marred by a streak of transphobia. Wikipedia summarizes its emergence in her work, including her assertion in Gyn/Ecology that transgender people are "Frankensteinian." While we want to honor her contributions to feminist thought, we also want to note the limitations of her brand of feminism, which deemed some women monstrous, a view that Shakesville endeavors quite fervently to counter. Cait and Shaker just_some_trans_guy also note she was challenged on her racism as well.

Read the comment thread or you just won't get it.

Another personal day off is surely in order, and I can't say I'd blame her.

Oh, and rest in peace, Mary Daly, despite your racist transphobic leanings for which I have zero tolerance. But she grew up in a different era than David Letterman who is obviously more evolved.

From Wikipedia:

Mary Daly (October 16, 1928 – January 3, 2010[1][2]) was an American radical feminist philosopher, academic, and theologian who taught at Boston College, a Jesuit-run institution, for 33 years. Daly consented to retire from Boston College in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male students in her Women's Studies classroom. She had, however, consented to teach male students separately.

Separate but equal. Reminds me of a Women in Witchcraft class I took in the 80s at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock in which the few men who signed up were deemed offensive (and most of them were) but I passed the course and learned a thing or two along the way, a memory and experience which I carry to this day.

David Letterman Is An Idiot

What the fuck indeed.

I come from the George Carlin school of comedy. He could make you feel uneasy about many things and it was often blunt, but it usually led to something enlightening. Not so with Letterman. This was so blatantly crass, I won't even put the video on my blog.

And that's saying something.

I'm proud to say I haven't watched Letterman in over 20 years. And counting.

And I have a personal message for the guy, if he's reading: Grow the fuck up.

3-D TV Excites Me Like a VHS Player

I don't always embrace new technology by bringing it into my home right away, but I do track new products and often find them exciting. I still haven't made the upgrade from my old outdated RAZR to an iPhone. As interesting as they are, I simply don't feel a need right now to use my phone for anything except phone calls, and even then I primarily have it for the convenience when out of the house, should the car break down or something like that.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I have not the least bit if interest in the development of 3-D televisions. Zilch. Nada. I can't be alone in my feelings.

A full-fledged 3-D television turf war is brewing in the United States, as manufacturers unveil sets capable of 3-D and cable programmers rush to create new channels for them.

Many people are skeptical that consumers will suddenly pull their LCD and plasma televisions off the wall. Beginning at around $2,000, the 3-D sets will, at first, cost more than even the current crop of high-end flat-screens, and buyers will need special glasses — techie goggles, really — to watch in 3-D.

[...]

Anticipating this coming wave, ESPN said Tuesday that it would show World Cup soccer matches and N.B.A. games in 3-D on a new network starting in June, and Discovery, Imax and Sony said they would jointly create a 3-D entertainment channel next year. The satellite service DirecTV is expected to announce its own 3-D channels at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where every major television manufacturer is planning to announce 3-D televisions and compatible Blu-ray DVD players on Wednesday.

I can see where this would have major appeal with sporting events but aside from that, I can imagine hearing a great big flopping sound. Then there's the issue with needing glasses for the enhanced 3-D experience. I already wear glasses. Am I expected to get excited about needing a second pair just to watch a friggin' TV show?

Manufacturers have developed two technologies for 3-D glasses in the home. In so-called polarized glasses, which can cost under a dollar, each lens blocks a set of images transmitted in certain types of light. “Active” glasses, which are better suited for LCD screens in particular, have battery-powered shutters that open and close rapidly, so each eye sees different views of each frame. These glasses can cost up to $100, but television makers are expected to package at least two pairs with each monitor.

Do people really want another battery-powered gadget sitting on the coffee table which is already cluttered with five or six remotes? If this idea gets your techie juices surging, be my guest. I definitely won't be standing in your way at Best Buy when you go to make your big purchase.

Would the beer commercials be in 3-D? If not, would you get a headache from watching them with the glasses on? That could get annoying having to remove them at each commercial break. Even worse, what if some commercials were in 3-D and others not? This could get nauseating.

But wait, there's more! Sooner or later, we'd have the first 3-D infomercial. Oh, joy. Sorry, I'm just a 2-D kind of guy.

The Drive-Thru Diet

I can't not laugh at this.

Want to lose weight? Forget exercise, even the kind you get from parking your car and walking into Taco Bell. Instead, use the drive-thru. Reaching out to grab the bag must burn some calories!

Friday Pussy Blog: Cluttered Desk Edition

OK, two things: because I was zoomed in on the Tot, you can't really see how cluttered the desk is with 2 other PCs and another monitor on it, as well as a ton of wires. Secondly, there's not a time zone on the planet where it's still Friday, and very few where it's still Saturday, but I'm a day late. Holidays throw me off. What else can I say?

I Can See Spring From Here

Happy New Year!

I love it when January rolls around each year. Late in December it's kind of hard to be thinking about spring. And then January 1st arrives and I realize spring will come this year. Not that I'm complaining about the 70 degrees we had yesterday afternoon.

With this morning's chill, that seems like... a year ago.

Resolute Shuns

Question of the Day

What are your resolutions for 2010?

I always make them and I always break them. For five years one of my resolutions has been to learn Spanish, and this year I am going to succeed.

As for the oral habits, flossing, tongue scraping, etc., I'm going to leave that off the table. I'll do it, as I did today, but feel I can only keep one promise at a time, and Spanish it is.

I will tell myself I can't study Spanish until I floss. That might help facilitate matters.

What about you?

Progress Happens

Since my last post was five days ago you might have suspected something was up. On Saturday I went out and got a new HP computer after grappling with my old Dell for over a week trying to get a plug & play USB headphone to be recognized. And the more I tinkered with the old PC, the more sluggish it became, even as I was taking steps to improve performance and speed!

Since Saturday I have been sitting here loading software onto the HP, installing backups of data files, and configuring email accounts for Outlook, among many other things. This process is never easy. However, this was one of the worst I can remember!

Aside from the obvious things like your My Documents folder, photos, music and videos, there are some which are easy to forget like tax returns from prior years stored in the Turbo Tax folder as well as remembering to put links to websites on your desktop which you like to visit such as Google Earth and Google Maps.

And speaking of Google Earth, I spent quite a bit of time on the old PC saving little flags on places where I have lived in years past as well as where current friends live, etc. I'm glad I remembered to move the file over where those saved places are stored!

I got all my Quicken financial data backed up and restored on the new PC which is rather important to me considering I've logged all my financial transactions since way back in the mid-1990s! However, I did have to upgrade to Quicken 2010 because Quicken 2008 wasn't compatible with Windows 7. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I didn't have more software upgrades to do... that I know of.

Anyway, it has been an adventure straight out of hell and back. Blogging was the last priority.

Even today, I spent almost the entire day trying to configure my konagod email account to work in Outlook. A few months ago I moved my domain from one host over to Yahoo and it was a much better deal cost-wise. Unfortunately, it didn't come with POP email so I had to manage everything in a Yahoo email account. That had escalated way out of control since it's also where all the Facebook emails are delivered. You know the ones... someone you don't know has commented on such and such page where you left a comment.

Yesterday I decided it was worth a couple bucks a month to sign up for a business email for konagod which allows for one POP email setup so incoming emails can be routed to Outlook where I can better manage things. (If you want to reach me, it's my blog name at my blog name dot com.)

I've set these up many times. Sometimes it's easy; sometimes it's a hassle. But I've never had such a flurry of problems as this time around.

Finally got that taken care of and now I can start a new year with the ability to better manage my emails. I've set a rule to force any emails from Facebook into a Facebook folder so they don't clutter my Inbox and I can go delete them at my leisure.

I'm starting to feel like I'm about to get my life back. I've been so wrapped up in all this today I completely forgot this is the day my dad died back in 1983. If he was still around I'm certain he would have enjoyed hearing about my tech hell. After all, he gave me my first personal computer experience back around 1976 or 1977. Back on those days, you manually entered all software code yourself, or you connected the computer to a cassette player and plugged in a software cassette that made a fax-like noise as it spent 20 minutes loading software for some black & white simple Pac-Man program!

Even after all the hassles of the past week or two, I can't say I miss that early PC experience much at all!

Friday Bitch Blogging: Christmas Day Edition

Some of you who stalk me on Facebook may know that I've been running back and forth to our neighbor's house every few hours this week to take care of dogs, walk them, clean up shit (only once so far), and generally wrangle them. It's been an adventure and it amazes me how quickly one can get "in tune" with dog habits.

And they have warmed up to me as well!

This is Rio. She has always been my favorite of the bunch, but now that I've gotten to know them better, they all have their quirks and interesting attributes.

But Rio is a slut.

She also really likes me. There was an immediate comfort level.

Nice tongue action.

Aura is really special, and now that I've had a chance to bond with her, I really love and appreciate her laid-back attitude. Not quite so paws hands-on, but still likes the attention and enjoys me.

I LOVE those eyes! What a seductress!

Scout is the regal one, and also the most aggressive in spreading the love around.

Beautiful snout!

But even the regal ones have to do their bidness.

Back rubs! Even if the human won't do it.

In the midst of all this giant canine activity is this tiny little thing known as Mickey. Back in his younger days he managed to get into our back yard and chased Sheldon back to the house! He and his chihuahua partner-in-crime really kept the neighborhood in check like the mafia.

I was a little apprehensive about caring for this little fucker, especially since he needs heart medication administered once a day. But you know what, he's sweet too!



I love taking him out for a pee, and he always glances over in my direction to see if I'm there, and I see the whites of his eyes. Or maybe he's saying, "stop watching me!"

Anyhow, when he's done he's goes racing up the walk back to the front door, those toenails just going clickity-clack. . And in the cold weather he enjoys sleeping right next to Scout to keep warm I guess.

So, with four dogs to take care of, and four cats, and a screwed up computer, and some work, it's been a busy week for me.

As the saying goes, thank fuck it's Friday. But this all resumes on Saturday.

Hope your Christmas was equally as delightful as mine!

Friday Pussy Blog: Christmas Day Edition

How rare for Christmas to fall on a Pussy Blog Day. Coupled with my PC cleanup frenzy which resulted in a wasted afternoon, I'd like to simply reboot.

A few nights ago I let Sweet Pea in the house and he got to re-experience the Tater Tot.

Sweet Pea's eyes are glowing from afar!

Now I present you with Tot, the Contortionist. I had been hoping to snap a shot of him in the Cat Loaf position but he decided it was grooming time.

And Sissy was still on the bed...refusing to even open her eyes.

I guess there's no point in me saying "Happy Friday Everyone" since no one worked today anyway, or so I hope. Aside from me and my PC issues. Oh well, what's a pagan to do on Christmas but work?