The USA has banned Vegemite. I guess I’ll never get a chance to try it now. Oh well, I probably wouldn’t have liked it anyway, but still … it seems like a ridiculous thing to ban, seeing as Aussies have been eating it for ages with no seeming harmful effects.

UPDATE: According to the FDA, there has been no ban on Vegemite. Lovers of the stuff can breath a sigh of relief.

Pierce Brosnan, Halley Barry, and a few other celebrities protested a proposed natural gas terminal off the coast of Malibu Sunday. Their complaints are that “the terminals would not meet clean air requirements and could be terrorist targets.”

First off, even though our clean air laws aren’t what they should be, they do get enforced, so I rather doubt this terminal will be built not meeting the standards as they are now. Secondly, not building something because it might be a terrorist target is about the most stupid reason I have heard EVER. If we aren’t going to build things, whatever those things may be, because they “could” be a terrorist target, then the terrorists have won the war. While we are at it, I guess we should start tearing down all the other things that “could” be a terrorist target too? We’d be safer that way, wouldn’t we?

I finally downloaded the demo for Vue 5 and played around with it a little bit. Because it runs in Rosetta, it dogs and crashes occassionally, but Vue 6 is coming out soon and it’s going to be 100% compatible with my iMac. Also the demo has a lot of stuff disabled, which always sucks. I just wanted to see if I was even all that interested in the program. I am. It’s very different from Bryce, but I love it!

Click the pic for a slightly larger view!

As far as mandatory reporting [of murders confessed to you], do you people believe that if you see a friend of yours smoke pot; you’re required to report it? Why would murder be different?
–delmoi

It’s 3:50 am, and I have just been struck dumb by reading that statement at Metafilter. I’d respond there, but a) no one ever pays attention to anything I say and b) I do try to avoid getting caught up on Metatalk flame wars. It all started with an anonymous question posted to Ask Metafilter, and moved on to a rant-fest in MetaTalk. Both threads are tediously long and filled with much smug idiocy, so unless you enjoy that sort of thing or are trying to bore your brain into sleep, I personally wouldn’t suggest reading them in their entirety. I know I wish I hadn’t. The above quoted statement is just a prime example of what I mean, and I just had to make note of it and say something somewhere.

So let’s see … how exactly would having someone you know tell you they killed someone and buried them in a field be at all different from seeing a friend smoking pot? I’m just going to freaking guess and say it might have something to do with the fact that smoking pot is a low-level crime in most places and doesn’t involve dead bodies buried in field, and killing someone and burying them in a field is one of those crimes you can actually be forced to relinquish your life for because SOMEONE WHO WAS ALIVE IS NOW DEAD, AND YOU DID IT! Oh yeah, I see it’s JUST LIKE SMOKING POT!

Are we really to the point where people think it’s perfectly OK to kill someone if you can get away with it? That so long as you have a shitty life due to feeling bad about it, that’s all the punishment you deserve? Am I the only one who thinks that’s just freaking insane?!

I’m just going to tell you right now, if anyone ever confesses to me they killed someone and buried them in a field and hadn’t gotten caught, I will report it. I don’t care if you are my Best Friend Forever. I don’t take murder lightly, and no one else should either. So you have been warned. Don’t tell me about it when you kill someone unless you are ready to turn yourself in on the spot.

I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to do a little writing. Ronin crawled up by me and then found a new napping spot. Ignore the hideous and sleepless human in the photo as well as the terrible no-light webcam quality.

I’m going to go back to bed and try to sleep.

I keep trying to catch up with my online existence, and it just isn’t happening. Those of you who have been around here know that when fall arrives, I tend to get busy with house, home and my family. The holiday season is approaching, and thus begins the annual insanity. This year is winding up being no different. Every time I have sat down at the computer today, hoping to spend an hour or so responding to comments, working on some of the multiples of posts sitting in draft mode, or even just maybe checking my email, the phone rings, and there goes another hour of my life. While I can ignore phone calls from friends and call back when I have some spare time, family members are not so easily ignored. They just keep calling back until you answer.

Now it’s time to go start planning dinner and getting ready for our usual Friday night activities, so no more time to spend sitting here again! Come hell or high water, tomorrow I am sitting my butt down at the computer and at least finishing up one of the draft posts laying around. I hate it when they start stacking up. Then the subject matter gets outdated, and I just end up deleting them. I hate wasting words and effort.

Trust me, I will find some time to rant, because I have some things I really want to rant about. That’s what really sucks about not being able to sit at my computer and frantically type my opinions about things going on in the world (and with the family), I don’t get it off my mind, and then it just sits in there and stews. This leaves me grumpy. So for the good of the people who have to deal with me every day, I better get some time to rant soon, or the results will be ugly.

If only I had a robotic me sitting in a closet that I could pull out to deal with the October through January madness that is my life. Then I could get some peace and quiet to get my rant on. Here’s a little taste of recent familial activity:

One of my cousins through marriage wants her and her husband (my actual cousin) to spend Xmas day with her family, because they NEVER have (like ever, for more than 40 years). This is, as those of you who know much about my family will have guessed already, causing a hellstorm. Now, if my family wants everyone to be at our gathering, we have to have it on some day other than Xmas itself, another thing that has never happened in all of recorded history. How dare she screw up my family’s plans, huh? Yeah, well, just wait until I drop the bomb that Lin and I may be going to Chicago for Xmas for the first time EVER. The hellstorm that causes may lead to the destruction of the entire planet. And, of course, once again we are all involved in intense negotiations concerning whether or not presents are to be exchanged at the family gathering. My vote remains unchanged. Why can’t we all just bring a bunch of food and spend time together since we only all get together once a year. This having to buy presents for everyone present on top of having to spend money to get there is a budget cruncher for everyone. It was so much better when we drew names and only “had” to buy one present for one person. It’d be even better if people would realize that presents are NOT REQUIRED in order to have a good time with your family for Xmas. I will not win this war, but it doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying. Gah … my family makes me insane!

Better stop now. I am feeling the urge to sit here and rant, and I really need to take a shower, pick up the clutter in the living room, and get ready to spend some time with my husband (who isn’t currently driving me insane at all) and the kittens (who have already driven me batty days ago). Speaking of kittens, here’s a photo of them hanging around what they have determined is a cat watering trough. Yes, we may call it a tabletop fountain, but they have claimed it as their preferred drinking hole. Moving up the list of future purchases for the cats is one of those fancy fountain-like watering bowls. Not that I actually believe it will stop them from drinking at the fountain. They really LOVE my fountain.

Wednesday felt like Monday … at least I hated yesterday as much as I usually do Mondays. The weather was damp and nasty, and I had to catch up on the housework. I was also totally fatigued. Still am, but all the same I spent the first half of today, after doing the usual morning routine of coffee and microwave breakfast foods, finally doing that major grocery shopping trip I kept putting off. Oh my god. I knew I was in trouble when I hadn’t even made it to the canned goods yet and the basket was already overflowing. I got almost everything I needed and wanted by the time I was done, and the final tally was $170. Seems like a lot of money, but depending on how often we eat out or get delivery (usually no more than once or twice a week), it could last as long as three or four weeks. I really did good on finding bargains and sales. I just wish the expedition hadn’t take so many hours. Yes, it took me hours. I left the house just after 9 am, got home well after 1 pm, and I just now got all the stuff put away. I was going to do the dishes and ironing this afternoon, but I’m so tired now, all I want to do is sit on the couch and play with kittens … which is exactly what I will be doing shortly.

It still feels weird to buy groceries without keeping careful track of exactly how much I am spending while I am tossing things in the basket. Pretty much my whole life what I bought to eat was dictated directly by how much I had to spend, and it was never really enough. Then when I was done, I had to report to parents or husband exactly how much I had spent so they’d know how much was left in the bank. It just feels weird not to have that stress anymore. Weird in a good way, but I don’t think I’ll every get used to just buying groceries without panicking about every little thing I put in my basket and weighing every decision. Though I am still as frugal as I can be. No sense going insane, right? I may have fondled the imported Feta cheese and the fat black figs, but I didn’t buy them. I’m not to the point yet where I can toss really expensive foodstuffs into my basket, at least not unless I have a very specific plan for using them.

I really wanted those figs though. Oh did they look good, and I haven’t had a fig in over a decade at least. Maybe even longer. Next week, I may have to splurge and get a few just so I can remind myself what a fig really tastes like. I’m sure they taste more like my memories of them than Fig Newtons do, and that’s the only sort of figs I have had recently.

This was the kittens first experience with Mommy bringing in loads of plastic bags filled with unknown objects, so you know they helped out as much as they could by rustling through the bags and being directly under foot while I was trying to put things away. They just think plastic bags are the best toys ever, whether the bags are full of things or not. Then they found the feather duster I bought, and I had to chase them around the house to get it back. Good thing it’s a really cheap duster, because it’s missing a few feathers now. Yup, feather dusters are even better than plastic bags!

Speaking of the kittens, I really need a make a huge post about them soon. They are such a blessing, though I do admit to occasionally having thoughts of what insanity drove me to get two. They can be such terrors at times. But … they are so precious at other times, it totally makes up for it. I’ll sit down in the next few days and go through the most recent photos and write up a long post about how their little personalities are developing and how wonderful (and terrible) they can be. Both of them are growing up to be the perfect cats for us. Ronin is the rambunctious, energetic, rough-housing and always-wanting-to-play cat that Lin wanted, and Myu is the soft and cuddly hold-me-now-and-stroke-my-fur cat that I wanted. So without even having put much if any thought into which of the kittens presented to us we would take home, we ended up with just the right cats. See, I told you the universe would grant us the cats we wanted and needed in our lives.

It’s sort of funny, but I was commenting to Lin the other day about how different they are from each other, and yet how very much like Fuzza they both are at the same time. Does anyone remember that old Star Trek episode where there’s a transporter accident where Kirk gets split into two versions of himself, one with all the sensitive good qualities (and wimpy) and one with all the aggressive and bad qualities (and meanish)? Well, it’s like Fuzza went through the transporter and got split into two new kittens that are now living with us … if you could smush them together, they’d be a cat just like Fuzza. I know, that sounds weird, but that’s really the way it feels sometimes.

Anyway, like I said, I’ll write up a post in the next few days solely devoted to the babies. I don’t really want to sit here babbling for too long right now. I’ll also be catching up with comments at Just Orb and my LJ tonight or tomorrow morning. Normally don’t let myself fall this far behind, but it’s been strange around here since late last week. Nothing big or scary, but the change of the seasons always throws me off for some reason. Didn’t help that I was sick either. I am still trying to catch up with my online life from that lost time. Ugh.

Oh, and the Dart drove great. I had a moment of total panic when I came out with the groceries, because there was a huge puddle of clear liquid under the back end of the car. Naturally I stuck a finger in it and sniffed, and thankfully it was only water from last night’s rain. Phew. Gave me a start though! The brakes do need adjusting, and now one the wiper arms has disconnected itself from the motor (an easy fix), but all in all, it’s good to have it up and running again … though you know I was freaked out about driving (which is why it took me until today to go get groceries).

Also, fall in definitely here. Yesterday I still had the air conditioning on. Tonight I suspect I will be cranking up the furnace. The bedroom and bathroom were as cold as an icebox this morning, and even though the sun finally came out and the day warmed up nicely, it’s still very chilly in here. As much as I griped about how hot this summer was, I hate winter even more, mostly because we don’t have fall at all. By Halloween, it’ll be really cold and nasty outside … which is a relative statement, because I know some of you would laugh at what we call cold around these parts. I know it’s not THAT cold really, but for a native Texan, winter still feels like winter, even when the temperature is in the 50’s.

Now I’m going to go make me some mac-n-cheese for lunch, but on some warm and comfy clothing, and play a few turns of the Civ IV game I have going. By the time I am done eating, dressing, and playing, the kittens will have worn themselves out, and we can all go cuddle on the couch together. I definitely think a little catnap is in order.

Damn I am TIRED!

Here are the top ten (twelve actually) fuel efficient cars for 2007:

1. Toyota Prius hybrid-electric, 60/51
2. Honda Civic Hybrid, 49/51
3. Toyota Camry Hybrid, 40/38
4. Ford Escape Hybrid FWD, 36/31
5. Toyota Yaris manual, 34/40
6. Toyota Yaris automatic, 34/39
7. Honda Fit manual, 33/38
8. Toyota Corolla manual, 32/41
9 (tie). Hyundai Accent manual, 32/35
9 (tie). Kia Rio manual, 32/35
10(tie). Ford Escape Hybrid 4WD, 32/39
10 (tie). Mercury Mariner Hybrid 4WD, 32/29.

It’s something I have been thinking about a lot, because while I do plan to keep the Dart forever, it would be nice to some day have a nice new car as well. Obviously, we are in no position to buy one of the super-expensive hybrids which top the list, but right there at number five, the first non-hybrid car on the list, is one I have been looking at and mulling over … the Toyota Yaris. I think I’d rather have a VW Bug, but with a pricetag of only $12,000, the Yaris Liftback is looking more and more cute to me all the time … and you’ll notice the Bug didn’t make the top ten (twelve) on this list either, something that becomes increasingly important with the price of gas seemingly always going up.

I was sitting at my computer typing away frantically at a political rant, when totally without warning My Precious rebooted itself. Since I didn’t have any other powered things on in the house, not even a lamp, I have no idea if it was the fault of the computer or just another electrical glitch. We’ve been having millisecond long power outages for the last few days. Not long enough to force me to have to reset the clock on the microwave but plenty long enough to reboot computers. Very annoying.

So My Precious boots back up, I log in, I open Firefox and begin picking the links I was using out of my browser history when I notice I am no longer connected to the internet. Even more horrifying, I am apparently no longer communicating with the router and modem at all. Eeek!

I check all the cables, since we have kittens and they do enjoy pulling computer cables out of plugs. No joy. All is well with my physical connection. I boot up Lin’s computer, and before it’s even gotten to the desktop, I can see on the router that his computer is having no difficulty connecting to the modem. Dammit. I reboot the modem and router, but there is still no joy. My Precious has vanished from the network.

Returning to my desk, I sat and stared woefully at Firefox telling me it can’t connect. I don’t know what to do, so I shut down the computer and turn it back on. This fixed the problem, as you can see. Not that I know what the problem was or why my computer decided to reboot on its own, or what the hell just happened. I guess all’s well that ends well, right?

The worst of it is that some hundreds of well-thought-out words vanished into the ether, and now I have to try to pull those words or some that are similar from my mind all over again. Argh! Rantus Interuptus! I don’t have time to do it now seeing as I am doing the dishes and getting ready for dinner. I hadn’t expected to get done with it before dinner anyway, but still … I’d already spent an hour collecting information and formulating arguments. Because I feel the post was one of those I have to write and post, I suppose I’ll be sacrificing some of my after-dinner world domination time with Civ IV. This will surely lead to Rantus Escalatus and leave me in a rotten mood. I’d planned to attempt diplomacy this evening rather than going nuclear.

In addition to this crisis, the kittens are driving me stark raving insane today. Lucky for them, they still know how to be totally adorable while doing so … and they really are totally adorable.

After staying up all night and trying every possible combination of settings on Civ IV, I have found a solution of sorts. It seems it’s the built-in sound “card” on the iMac causing all the woe. When I turn off the sound, I can set the graphics rendering as high as I like and have as many animations as I like, and it didn’t crash.

Therefore, I stayed up all morning nuking the Mongols until they glowed and then won the space race and ran off to Alpha Centauri. I always wanted to start a thermonuclear war!

Just as was in the process of winning my game, I heard a strange “sploink-splash” sound from the bathroom followed by kittens running everywhere. Apparently either Lin or I forgot to close the toilet seat when last we used it, and silly Myu fell right in. Somehow she managed to get more water all over the toilet and floor than herself. How? I have no idea. I do wish I had witnessed her moment of clumsiness though. I’m sure it was hilarious!

Now that I have destroyed a planet and flown off to another world, I think I’ll go lay down for a while. I should do the housework, but a nap sounds like such a great idea. War is very tiring.