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Put the poodle back in the basket.

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A few sites for positive change – None of them cost a penny but can help to do good works.

The hunger site – free food to the hungry
Breast cancer site – Help to fund free mammograms
Child Health site – Help save young lives for free
Rainforest Site – help to preserve our rainforests
Animal rescue site – Feed an animal in need.

Ok.. now that I’ve built up some positive karma, let’s whine a little about whiners.

In The Silence of the Lambs the egregious psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter explains to Agent Clarice Starling why he killed one of his own patients: “I simply could not endure his interminable whining any longer. Besides, his therapy was going nowhere. Believe me, Clarice, there isn’t a psychiatrist in the country who wouldn’t like to refer a few cases to me.”

That sums up how I feel about a lot of the journals out there. I’m glad that I have the easy way out, and can opt not to read them or even link. I feel that a few of the journals I’ve seen (none that I regularly read, though some certainly exist on my friends friends page) in passing are written by “professional victims.” I can’t help but wonder if a daily whiney / angst journal can be good, because they’re getting it out of their system, or if it’s a bad idea they’re feeding that sense of misery and isolation to the exclusion of any other feelings. I suspect it’s more often the latter. I do know that journals will sometimes have hostility, angst and melancholy in them… heck, I do it enough. The flipside, of course is the folks that write that way out of a desire for attention or coddling. “Woe is me, woe is me” loses a lot of its strength after hearing someone say it for a year.

The ones that complain and *only complain* deeply, heartfully about the most non-issues are what get me. If something bugs you, do something, and make a positive difference. The world’s a big place with plenty of room for improvement.

This cartoon sums it up pretty well.

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You bleed, Kirock! Behold a god who bleeds!

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I thought blogshares would be more interesting than it is. (BlogShares is a fantasy stock market where web logs are the companies. Players invest fictional dollars on shares in blogs. Blogs are valued by their incoming links and add value to other blogs by linking to them. Prices can go up or down based on trading and the underlying value of the blog.) The site is very slow… almost to the point of not being playable. I’ll give it a few days, and see if it shifts in any direction, one way or the other.

I’m ranked as the 9th top player for august 2003 so far. (Scott von Berg 20726.49% growth -Rank: 4208, $104,132.43 current worth / $500.00 start of month)

As it stands now, I’ve only invested in my own… when you register your blog, you get 1000 shares of your own journal, but maybe I’ll expand outward to folks on my reading list as well. Starting with $500 virtual dollars, and the stock value of my site, my portfolio is worth $104,271.60 I set up a goofy little RSS feed (scotto_shares) that’ll tell me when / how the share value fluctuates. Oddly, since my journal can be accessed in three distinctly different links, via http://scottobear.livejournal.com, http://www.livejournal.com/~scottobear and http://www.livejournal.com/users/scottobear, it’s valued in three different ways, depending on investments. s.l.com is currently worth $49.91 each – 249.52 p/e, ~ is worth $34.42 each -172.10 p/e, and users is $19.62 each – 98.03 p/e

Looking at things, I see that chrishaas has already placed a bid on the most expensive of the available shares, but at no profit to me. He’d stand a greater chance of profit by bidding on public shares in the “users or ~” version. For simplicity of bidding, I’ve made those mentioned in this paragraph as direct links to the respective blogshares. If you want to play, I recommend the one that’s going for $19.62 each, rather than the $49.91. (Less than half price, with growth potential. I think the middle one “users” has the most growth possibility, because that’s the default listing.)

Other folks listed on blogshares that I might look into investing in (- (typed in to the search, many on my list haven’t been listed I’m tempted to post my reading list here, so that they get spidered) edbook (here), flying_blind (here), meredith (here), sweetalyssm (here) and tarpo (here). If anyone else sets up an account, or ends up on blogshares, let me know, so I can invest. 🙂 The above listings were spidered (many from my journal, I’d imagine), and aren’t officially “on the market” yet.

Of course, totally private or friends only-blogs aren’t tradable, nor are “non-indexed sites” as there’s nothing for the public to link to or track. Communities also seem to be out of the action, which is a shame, because I imagine the would do well. Also, Weblogs.com has to be active in your userinfo, I think.

Regarding the Vampire game… they’ve added a new element. Peacekeepers. There are flyers pasted up on many walls in the city, advertising “Peacekeepers Missions”. There are very small quite useless maps scrawled on the poorly photocopies scraps of paper, but the addresses are quite clear – the newbie mission is at Emerald and 67th, while the others are at Unicorn and 33rd and Emerald and 33rd respectively. It looks like ‘mission’ is used in the sense of a building, rather than the sense of a quest, but it’s not very clear at all.

The Expedition Company… seems normal enough for vacations and getaways until you get to the part about the hollow earth expedition.

Nifty sounding drink that I’ve never consumed – Dead Lizard

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Random Scotto Stuff – My first job for a large company (Taco Viva, Boynton Beach Mall, 1985, I think?) payed minimum wage, at the time $3.35 an hour. I made enough for gas a telephone line and car insurance.

Electronics Boutique paid a bit better than that, and for a while I worked dual-duty. The stink of EB and the Bookstore was that I was required to wear a tie.

When I started at the library, in high school, the wage was $4.42 an hour. That was part-time, and paid under $300 a month after taxes. Six years later, when I stopped working there, I was making just under double that. (Which was a good thing, because my first solo dwelling, a studio, cost me $330 a month in rent.) Happily, I found better pay being an assistant manager at a bookstore near my apartment and school.

Added some fun games to the Toybox…Plastic Balls!, Clay Kitten Skeet Shooting, Hairball Bowling, Hexxagon and The Pipe Game.

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Looking into A Child is Missing. It looks like they do really good work, helping the police during the first few hours of the disappearance of a child / elderly / disabled person. They’re funded by donations and government grants. The home base is only about 2 miles from my apartment, too.

Sakes… what a little celebrity gossip-mongering list this is. Newest stuff in blue…Like all gossip, I’m sure it’s best taken with a grain of salt. Maybe a whole salt lick. (Orson Welles possibly the Black Dahlia Murderer?)

Omniglot: A Guide to Writing Systems -For fun stuff, see the alternative writing systems, including alphabets from Fantasy and Science Fiction. See your name in assorted systems.

Metacritic is a ratings accumulator not unlike Rotten Tomatoes (except that it covers music as well as film, videro/dvd, and games). Gigli is currently at 19, and falling, or “Overwhemiing Dislike and/or Disgust.” (0-19 is the lowest possible score range, out of 100) Right now, Rotten Tomatoes has Gigli at an average rating of 2.6/10, with only one positive review out of the 59 accrued so far. A decent movie is considered 60% or better… the current list is 2%.

Non-castaways on Gilligan’s Island Master List

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I'd like to pull the book out of my mind and open it here.

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Dream elements… crushing a can of black cherry soda that was still full on a hike… I dump out the sugar-water and flatten the can like a hockey-puck and slip it into my pocket for safekeeping. I’m walking through a rainforest, and there are 3-foot tall mechanical geese everywhere. They’re made of clear glass and when they sing exotic plant seeds and bulbs shoot from their mouths and burrow into whatever they land on … dirt, trees, rocks, water… One faces me, and I catch some seeds on my chest and arms… the seeds penetrate into my skin, but don’t bloom back afterwards. A huge flock of parrots flies over head and the sounds of their wings is almost deafening as they retreat from a gigantic inky-black cloud that is swirling behind them, slowly pincering in and engulfing them. The mechanical birds fly up and feed on the cloud, going from being transparent to a deep, opaque crow-black. It seems to make them heavier, as they stop flying, and instead glide slowly back to the ground, lined up in formation, no longer distributing plant life (or shooting me, either.) Rain starts falling from the now-clear sky, and the surrounding plants are growing so rapidly, it’s almost like I’m shrinking, instead. The scent of ozone fills the air, and mixes with some sort of heady, sweet smell, like honeysuckle and oranges. I notice that though a great amount of water is falling, I’m not getting wet, even though there’s no cover overhead…a drowsiness surrounds me and I wake up, pretty comfortable and refreshed.

Dang, this week just blew on by. I can hardly believe it’s Friday again.

Fantastic Kate Bush resources via nomi –

rare mp3s – http://www.norbry.net/kate-bush/mp3/
Kate photos as a little girl.. http://home.att.net/~james51453/index.htm

How to swear in 113 languages.

a year ago – istockphoto, dead links, Shitou Xiqian, smiled at, fortune cookie, walkerbot, Liver Eatin’ Johnson

2 years ago – hungrybaby, New Apes move lame, wiseacre, Champions stats for the Shadow, Dwayne Dibley?, Poul Anderson passes away, LJ moves in space,

3 years ago – Everway character- wanders the storm path

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Called workman’s comp, and the said approval was given, and the doctor should’ve called.

I called the doctor, and they claim workman’s comp should’ve called.

I say it’s passing the buck, and I’m glad that I was willing to sit through a lot of nonsense to talk to these people. I’m on hold right now to set up an appointment.

Update – Ok, since it was up to WC to make an appointment for the MRI, and they didn’t call, I’ve got the doctor’s office doing it for me now. I have assurances that I will be called back today with the appointment. I hope that the foot brace is available somewhere nearby. (and that it will accommodate my giant body parts…. size 15 shoes are hard enough to find.. I hope that the brace is more available.)

I’m pretty disappointed with liberty mutual’s treatment of workman’s comp stuff.

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Does it look like the building on the left is leaning to the right? That’s the sun-sentinel cam- From left to right, you are seeing: The edge of a new condo under construction; the Travel Guard building, which is one of the oldest buildings in downtown; Las Olas Boulevard, which is the curving road, and the Museum of Art, the structure on the far right. In the background, you see the Las Olas Riverfront area and the white building in the far distance at the center is the Museum of Discovery and Science. In the immediate foreground is the sales center for the condominium tower under construction.

morning cam

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Haven’t heard from my brother in a few days.. I’m getting a little worried about him. I really don’t like when he doesn’t have an accessible telephone. I’ve already put in an hour of code this morn… Tracy is really putting me to good use.

I need to call workman’s comp and find out about my foot brace and MRI. They’ve had more than ample time to contact me. They’ve got until noon to put things right.

Great that you can type keyword into Google news and get stories directly. “Electrocuted monkey” returns –

Monkey say Ook Ack

“About 40 monkeys went on the rampage in a western Bangladeshi village after one of their young was accidentally electrocuted.

The large monkeys, known as hanumans in Bangladesh, were eating nuts given by the residents of the remote Keshabpur village in Jessore district on Saturday, but ran off when a stone was thrown at them, the Bengali-language Sangbad Daily said, quoting residents.

A baby monkey was electrocuted after being caught in a live wire as they fled, sparking the animals to use sticks to attack several homes and shops in the village, the newspaper said.

They later left, taking the baby monkey’s body.”

One-way Bullet Resistant Glass

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Ugh… trolls. Don’t they realize that they serve no purpose, and are always rubbed out in the end?

Wipe them out. All of them.
“Wipe them out… All of them.”

I really wonder sometimes what causes people to lash out, online. Immaturity and some sort of bully complex are probably the biggest reasons. You have to wonder who wasted an authorization code for them, and if it can be tracked back.

There was a great deal of little nit-noids and niggling speedy-code this morning and yesterday… I’m glad, though, because it mixed things up a bit for me, and gave me a chance to cleanse my palate before returning to Niggling code, work reason? I wonder what’s bringing the onrush in, lately? New Clients? CSRs testing to see what they can get? Either way, I’ve done a good job and in record time.

Oh dear… Naughty hulk! (Probably work safe, unless your boss doesn’t like stuffed animals with a little extra felt where it counts.) The expression on Leah’s face is priceless.

At a park in Ohio, all you need to hunt for fossils is a bucket and a willingness to get dirty. Here’s the CNN story. Man, and I thought the peace river was fossil-rich! I want a trilobite!

http://www.wonderwoman-themovie.com/

a year ago – Wave of Husband killings, apple nipple monkey, star trek chairs auctioned, Ashcroft afraid of kitties

two years ago – brackish , some broken links, dancing poll, tried mcD’s yogurt & fruit, Le Petomane, band name poll, bid farewell to some junk,

three years ago – angry beavers, scary movie, don’t look behind you.

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*60 activates call block. I’d been getting annoyance calls from a “disconnected number”, so I did the smart thing, and added that number to my block list. Simple, elegant solution. Speaking of calls, I spoke with my doctor’s office, and had to phone up workman’s comp in order to schedule my MRI and get my leg brace… waiting for a call back. They’re supposed to recall by end of day today.

Oddly, I got another call after activating it.

My new phone came today… much nicer than the $6 phone I was using as a temp. That will be relegated to the tech-box in case of emergencies. My only complaint is that the new phone takes 3 C batteries… and my charger seems to only handle AA and AAA as well as 9v clips. I will concern myself with it more as the batteries grow weak.

This is my kind of “running of the bulls”. Thanks, sweetalyssm! I think the horns were attached a la Steve Martin’s Arrow through the head method. See also Ralph’s screen test.

For Ray, who was right… Batroc is indeed a Frenchman, not Belgian.

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owie!

Welcome to Baby Ink, where we believe that it’s never to early to start expressing your unique personality through professional, high quality body art. Baby Ink locations are non-threatening, family friendly places where people of all ages can feel calm and at ease. Although we are the ORIGINAL body art chain to cater to toddlers and children, our experienced, talented staff is glad to work on people of all ages. So whether you’re 8 months or 88 years old, if you’re ready for a tattoo or a body piercing-the clear choice is Baby Ink.

(update, it’s a confirmed fraud, but an impressive gag.)

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New Noontime ritual in the works, watching Lovejoy, for later discussion with Danny. A fun show, they break the 4th wall a lot for narrative purposes.

It looks like the interests page has been cleaned up, as well as the user info page… at the end of the interests list, there’s a little blurb that allows you to modify yours. -Via peradouro

Insurance called, and apparently misunderstood about my being able to work form home. I honestly cannot take the bus and train for literally hours every day. Going back and forth to physical therapy is torment enough, thank you. I wish that they’d just talk to the doctor about these things, and get a straight answer rather than just assuming “can continue to work from home” means, “can work at work, if accommodated”. It’s not nearly the same, as much as I’d like it to be so.

Ray Stevens – Mr Businessman
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