Good gravy I am soooo feeling guilty for not writing here. I know I shouldn't be because let's face it, no one really reads this anyway but well, I still feel bad. I can only lay the blame on Kiefer Sutherland. Damn him anyway for starring in probably the most addictive, consistently excellent tv show I've ever seen. And curse him for being such a good actor. And damn him to hell for being so bloody hot. *sigh*

I've been spending most of my time watching the first two seasons of 24 on DVD, immersing myself in a Komplete Kiefer addiction, and spending inordinate amounts of time watching a plethora of Kiefer flicks I missed the first time around. he's so damn underrated.

Anyway, that's my excuse for not being here much. Apart from work I haven't even been online much. TCZ feels like it's a fading interest and I've been contemplating retirement from admin there (and I'm sure there are a few users around there who would be happy to know that, but again, I don't really care much. I've had a lot of free time between Kiefer movies to think about the direction my life's going in and I've discovered I don't like it much. So I've been giving a lot of thought to moving back to California and trying to up my career. I've written a lot about this decision in my other blog so I don't feel like rehashing it here, but suffice to say I'm sure I'll have more to say about it eventually. It's not definite, but it's serious enough.

I don't have much else to say this time around. I'll try to write more soon.
Posted by Melia @ 03:02 PM CST [link] [585 Comments]

So I'm reading this article on cnn.com and it goes into pretty good detail on why, when you buy pre-packaged cookies, when you open the package some of the cookies are in tiny bits. British physicists carried out extensive laser tests that showed that cookies often develop 'fault lines' shortly after baking.

"According to researchers at the University of Loughborough in Leicestershire, central England, as biscuits cool down after coming out of the oven, they pick up moisture around the rim which causes them to expand.

At the same time, moisture at the center makes them contract. The difference results in a build-up of strain forces that can pull a cookie apart."

So naturally when these defective cookies are handled and packaged, they break up.

I have just one question after reading this article: Who gives a shit?

I mean really, scientists have nothing better to do than study cookies? According to the article, their aim was to help manufacturers produce consistent packages full of perfectly cookies with no crumblies left at the bottom of the bag. Hey don't get me wrong. I think it's one of life's great tragedies that consumers spend their hard-earned cash on a bag of cookies only to discover some of the cookies have crumbled. But I think these scientists' time could be better spent figuring out how to de-crumble bags of potato chips instead. Surely different theories would apply to the chip as opposed to the cookie. I believe extensive laser tests are in order to solve this pressing problem.
Posted by Melia @ 01:00 PM CST [link] [6 Comments]

Everyone needs a Trunk Monkey! Tho it is stirring up controversy from people who have no sense of humour. Check out http://www.sillyhumor.com/trunkmonkey/. I can definitely think of a few people that would come in handy for. Maybe I could develop a Pocket Trunk Monkey for my purse and whenever someone irks me I could just open it and a little monkey with a wrench could crawl out and thwap whoever's bugging me.

Oh such a violent world. How dare these advertisement companies condone something that could potentially add to all the violence in the world! Puh-lease. It's a fecking monkey in a trunk. Who does that? It's 'humour', it's 'parody'. Look it up in the dictionary you Puritanical twits. Next I suppose PETA will whinge about the ad company making a monkey lie in a trunk. Yeesh.
Posted by Melia @ 09:30 AM CST [link] [196 Comments]

I got a bit of email spam recently that puzzled, yet amused me:

Subject: Dimensional Warp Generator Needed
Hello,

I'm a time traveler stuck here in 2003. Upon arriving here my dimensional warp generator stopped working. I trusted a company here by the name of LLC Lasers to repair my Generation 3 52 4350A watch unit, and they fled on me. Since nobody in this timeline seems to be able to deliver what I need (Safely here to me), I will have to build a simple time travel circuit to get where I need myself. While it might be hard to find parts in this time to build anything decent, I need easy to follow schematics from the future to build one which is safe and accurate that will not disrupt the time space continuum with both forward and backward capability, which can be built out of (Readily available) parts here in 2003.
Please email me any plans you have. I will pay good money for anything you send me I can use. Or if you have a dimensional warp generator available, and are 100% certain you have a (Safe secure) means of delivering it to me please also reply with a secure way to contact you. Send a separate email to me at: @*.net

Do not reply back directly to this email as it will only be bounced back to you.

Thank You
Brian Appel

Pretty funny eh? Well I posted it in the BBS on TCZ just to give the populace a giggle. Of course there's always one sarky git who has to reply with 'This is old news' - why do people feel they have to post replies like that? Is it some inherent need to make others feel inferior and stupid? That'd be my guess anyway. Other, nicer people actually took the time to mention other odd junk mail they have received and one bloke even took the trouble to find this article about similar time travelling emails others have received.

Anyway, I thought I'd send this Brian guy the schematics for a flux capacitor. Then all he needs is a Delorean and 1.21 jigowatts.
Posted by Melia @ 08:31 AM CST [link] [6 Comments]

I'm not a slacker, really I'm not. But bloody hell I haven't written here since the 5th! Shame on me. Well I won't bore anyone with excuses. I'm still alive

Lately TCZ has had a trend towards users getting webcams and having their friends on the chat switch them on, get drunk and start flashing each other. Amusing stuff Not quite sure how I feel about it myself as I'm not entirely comfortable flashing my bits and pieces to people I've never met IRL. And for soem reason, whenever my cam is on, I'm very aware of my eyebrows. Weird eh? So I don't put it on much. I only recently got it working again so now I have to get used to being viewable. Kind of takes away some of the bravado of being an anonymous user on the Internet. It makes all the difference in the world when people can put a face to the name and I think your behaviour changes considerably.

Being on cam one on one with someone you already know is a bit different though. Then it's just like a videophone Maybe that's why I'm so uncomfortable with it. All those people on TCZ having fun and flashing each other all know each other IRL because of all the UK meets they have that i can never go to. Sure I know some of them but the last time I saw a UK spod in person was five years ago so it's just a bit weird when they start bugging you to get your shirt off.

Anyway enough of that. I've blogged about this subject twice now and I think that's enough I've been getting out a lot more which is a good thing. Re-discovered ice skating and am just having a blast with that. Swimming will be ending in a couple weeks so I'm glad I've found another outlet for exercising. I'm not a gym person - I do not regard 'working out' as fun and so I'm less inclined to go. Why do something you don't enjoy? Ice-skating on the other hand is fecking cool and good for you.

I'm having problems with my browser here at work in that half the time images aren't downloading so it's been difficult for me to get work done because I can't see the results of web changes. Kind of annoying. I've just re-installed IE and it seems ok for now, but I bet it's a caching problem and I don't have a clue how to fix that. I'm not very technical when it comes to computers. I can tell you how to make gorgeous charts in Excell or how to add animated graphics to your Powerpoint presentation, but if something stupid happens with the hard drive, I'm lost. people don't seem to get that about me here at work. They figure I do the website therefore I must be the computer guru - that and I'm more accessible than our IS department who take ages to come fix stuff. Unfortunately 95% of the time I can't help either and I end up telling them to call IS. I wish they'd quit asking. Although... The other day my cousin had 2 geeky questions about Windows XP and I actually knew how to sort him out. It was a good feeling because growing up, my cousin was a computer genious - back in the days before the web. This boy would code his own video games and stuff. Now he's a little bit lost when it comes to a Windows environment. It's just odd to be the one he asks when he has a computer problem.

Right, I've got to go. Will write more soon... ish.
Posted by Melia @ 10:33 AM CST [link] [3 Comments]

You know it's been a while since you've blogged when you forget your login password. Dearie me. Anyway, What is going on with my little world online... Not a whole hell of a lot. MSN Messenger has finally upgraded their messenger and I'm chuffed with it so far. I especialy like the file sharing application - it's just like ftp! And the webcam feature finally works as well. Now MSN is catching up with yahoo. They just need better smilies and some versatile away messages and they'll be grand.

I managed to snake a copy or two of the first ROTK trailer that was leaked online. I made it available at The Picture Show and my traffic nearly doubled. Bless you Peter Jackson Yes yes I know, New Line asked the big sites to remove the file and I probably should as well, but you know what? I think fans of the movies are really desperate for even the smallest glimpse of anything ROTK-related so why deny them? Besides, like I've said in other blogs, I've always wanted an email from a studio telling me to remove something. I think I'd frame it.

What else have I done... Oh yeah, I became an ordained minister online. I don't really know why other than I thought it would be a lark (and I didn't really believe you could). I'm now Reverend [last name deleted] of the Universal Life Church and I'm able to perform weddings, baptisms and I bet I could do an exorcism if I really wanted. Hehe. I got the idea from my sis who was working at the hotel one evening when some guests said they wanted to do a spur-of-the-moment wedding the next day. So as she was scrambling to find a minister, she recalled something about being able to become ordained online so she checked it out. Sure enough, you can. So she got ordained, and then the guests changed their minds

I think I'll found a religion based on my cat.
Posted by Melia @ 11:57 AM CST [link] [5 Comments]

It's been a while since I blogged here. Oops. Well I get like that sometimes. The blogs come in spurts and there are always dry spells. I haven't been online much - well, I should rephrase to say I haven't been *doing* much online lately. I've had extra work given to meat my job that has f-all to do with being the webmaster and at first I was upset that it was being dumped on me, but once I started doing it, I realised I enjoyed it. My hospital puts out a monthly employee newsletter and it's kind of fancy shmancy. You would think this would be the responsibility of the publications coordinator. However she seems to be swamped, and so since I've been freelancing and doing brochures, it fell to me to take over fitting all the articles in.

So yeah, I was a little miffed and feeling like I was doing someone else's job and not getting paid for it (the publications coordinator gets a salary, I'm on an hourly wage, so naturally she makes a little more money than I do.) But I smiled and did it. And it took me right back to high school when I used to put the school paper together and loved doing that. I enjoyed laying it out and editing to fit and all that stuff. And when I was finished and handed it off to several people for proofing, I was told I did a fab job and there was very little that needed changing compared with how it usually is when they get it. That made me feel good

Anyway, I've been busy doing that as well as taking care of the websites. The movie site is coming along well. My cousin told me last night while we were comparing traffic stats that I'm getting as many hits a day on my site as he is, and he runs a big beer site that's been around for years and years. So I was chuffed about that. I'm just waiting for those premiere invitations to come pouring in now - hehehe.

Crazy day ahead today so I'd better get going. Will try to write more but I've been slacking on all the blogs lately. Oh dear...
Posted by Melia @ 07:33 AM CST [link] [4 Comments]