Anyone interested in reading accounts and status reports of the situation in the Indian Ocean without all the political baggage and finger-pointing will find these websites of interest.

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/
This one is the "everything you wanted to know but didn't know where to ask" blogger page. Information on just about every aspect of the tsunami recovery effort and resources can be found here.

http://desimediabitch.blogspot.com/
Another blogger in the area with first hand accounts of survival and loss and how the people are coping.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4125619.stm
BBC filtered recounts of tsunami experience as well as people searching for info on relatives.


It will be interesting to see what happens in the Pacific's ring of fire area when the plates adjust themselves to compensate for the enormous movement of the SE Asia area. The southern edge of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands have been very active in the past few weeks. It also looks as if activity along the San Andreas fault is increasing. It's an interesting science with many mysteries still for us to unlock.

And now, time for the local news from Citrus Heights, California.



This weekend, a disturbing cacophony arose from the nearby wild turkey farm as a gang of the giant parakeets escaped and went on a rampage through the neighborhood. Last seen prowling my apartment complex, these turkeys should be considered charmed and dangerous.


Here's Lynn with the weather report.

We're having warmer weather this week, but the cold is due back soon. In the Sierras snow levels are already up to the edge of the highway marker signs, about 5 to 6 feet. The coldest it got here in Citrus Heights last week was 27 degrees. So far the plastic piping I have strung all around my balcony for the drip irrigation system has not frozen and cracked. The bird bath had a layer of ice on it for a few mornings. Currently, we're experiencing thick valley fog of the pea soup variety. I could barely see the buildings across from me yesterday morning. Very dangerous to drive in.

Speaking of driving, this just in...

That gang of turkeys was just spotted trapped along the walkway in a traffic jam. Looks as if the gals are a little red-cheeked by the overly dramatic struting of the toms as they display their wares. I don't blame them for cackling and sounding their horns in an effort to get traffic moving again.

Happy Holidays!



Christmas Carols For The Psyciatrically Challenged

Schizophrenia ---
Do You Hear What I Hear?

Multiple Personality Disorder ---
We Three Queens Disoriented Are

Amnesia ---
I Don't Know if I'll be Home for Christmas

Narcissistic ---
Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

Manic ---
Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and...

Paranoid ---
Santa Claus is Coming to Get Me

Borderline Personality Disorder ---
Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

Personality Disorder ---
You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll tell You Why

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ---
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

Agoraphobia ---
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day But Wouldn't Leave My House

Senile Dementia ---
Walking in a Winter Wonderland Miles From My House In My Slippers and Robe

Oppositional Defiant Disorder ---
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus So I Burned Down the House

Social Anxiety Disorder ---
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas While I Sit Here and Hyperventilate

Like Andy Rooney, I've been wondering about a few things lately...

1. What ever happened to the anthrax investigations of the incidents in NY and Washington, DC? I don't recall hearing of any conclusions or reports. Is it being swept under the rug for some reason?

2. Wonder why Tom Brokaw didn't mention the anthrax event that occurred in his very own office during his farewell show that highlighted significant events of his career.

3. Wonder why the networks think their nightly news shows have become obsolete because viewers can tune into 24/7 cable news shows anytime they wish. Have they forgotten about their FCC responsibilities to people like me who don't have cable?

4. Wonder if the networks have given any consideration to the fact that their viewership might be increased if they didn't all broadcast their evening news shows at the same time. They could easily compete with the 24/7 guys by staggering the airing of their shows during the evening hours.

That's what I've been pondering lately. How about you, Bueller? What's on your mind? Bueller? Bueller?

Brrrrrrr! Damn, it's cold! Woke up to an inside temp of 49 degrees inside the apartment and a freeze warning on the weather report. Have to leave outside faucets dripping on the balcony and in the laundry closet to keep them from freezing.



Looks like it is going to be this way all week. And, it isn't even winter yet!
Wonder if we'll get snow in the Sacramento Valley next weekend.


Thank goodness I invested in a good electric blanket last winter. Am seriously thinking about getting another to wrap up in while watching TV or on the internet.

One of my favorite actresses and people, Julia Roberts, has given birth to twins! (a boy and a girl.) Happy birthday to Phinnaeus Walter Moder and Hazel Patricia Moder and congrats to Julia and Danny.

Did some housekeeping around the website. Revised the "Projects" page and included sections for recipes, mom's poetry and stories about Grampa Trumley and Uncle Donald. Also added quite a few photos in the Family and Lynn section of the photo galleries.

The quest for employment goes on. I signed up at an agency for temp work and job placement but haven't heard anything yet. Been going through boxes of papers, sorting and repacking in case I need to move soon. Also started going through the half dozen boxes of clothing I have yet to unpack. Need to see what all still fits and is in good condition for when I go back to work. Goodwill will be the recipient of a lot of clothes that I no longer need or wear.

Stuart and Linda have been having weekend open house for prospective buyers of their Union City home. They are anxious to move to Florida and are busily packing.

Mom is keeping herself busy with a second puppy. She got a shih tzu female and named her Dolly (to go along with Madison, her other dog). Dolly is predominantly white with a black face with some tan and white markings, and with large black patches on her back. She got the second dog to keep Maddy company while she goes to her classes and visits friends, but Maddy is having a difficult time understanding that it's for his own good. lol. Hopefully, she'll take some pictures soon and share them.

Pardon me....I need to rant...

[rant-on]I'm starting to have a much greater understanding of what makes some people go postal.

I've been taking a break from working for the past two years and lived off the proceeds from selling my house. Now that I'm out looking for work again, I figured I'd apply for unemployment benefits since I paid into the fund for 18 years while at my previous employer. Come to find out, my application has been denied because I haven't been employed in the last 18 months. Hello! Exactly why was I paying MY money into that unemployment fund again? And why can't I have the benefit of MY money when I need it?

So, anyway...anticipating a financial squeeze in the near future I put a stop to all the automatic electronic payments I'd been using over the years to pay bills. I was able to instantly stop all of them except one, my rent payment. Never mind that when I signed up for the electronic payment I had written a discontinuation date of September 30th on it that was ignored by the management company and bank. Never mind that I again requested a halt via telephone to the manager. Never mind that the bank would not let me discontinue the automatic payment from MY account, saying that the vendor had to issue the stop order. Never mind that the only way to prevent my account from being overdrawn by the automatic payment was to place a stop payment on the electronic payment for a $25 fee and was told that this still does not guarantee the payment will not be attempted. Never mind that the electronic request did in fact go through and was rejected for insufficient funds for another $25 ding. On top of all that, the apartment management company now wants to charge me a $50 fee for the "returned check" because my telephone request to them had to have been made before the 15th! A check I never wrote or issued, and have tried to stop in every way possible!

Yep, I can very easily understand what leads people to go postal... I really really hate bureaucracy and corporate greed. The sad part is I desperataely need a job and am forced to participate in the very thing I hate.

[rant-off]

Okay, I feel better. It's safe to come out from your hiding places again.

May all your ghosts and goblins bring you a hauntedly good time this weekend.

Ouch, what a zinger! This handwriting analysis thing hit home and hit hard. Amazing. Give it a try for yourself. Here's the results I got for analyzing my own handwriting. It verbalizes exactly what I've been feeling lately and not been able to put into words.

Here is your analysis.

Lynn has a healthy imagination and displays a fair amount of trust. She lets new people into her circle of friends. She uses her imagination to understand new ideas, things, and people.

Lynn is very self-sufficient. She is trying not to need anyone. She is capable of making it on her own. She probably wants and enjoys people, but she doesn't "need" them. She can be a loner.

Lynn's true self-image is unreasonably low. Someone once told Lynn that she wasn't a great and beautiful person, and she believed them. Lynn also has a fear that she might fail if she takes large risks. Therefore she resists setting her goals too high, risking failure. She doesn't have the internal confidence that frees her to take risks and chance failure. Lynn is capable of accomplishing much more than she is presently achieving. All this relates to her self-esteem. Lynn's self-concept is artificially low. Lynn will stay in a bad situation much too long... why? Because she is afraid that if she makes a change, it might get worse. It is hard for Lynn to plan too far into the future. She kind of takes things on a day to day basis. She may tell you her dreams but she is living in today, with a fear of making a change. No matter how loud she speaks, look at her actions. This is perhaps the biggest single barrier to happiness people not believing in and loving themselves. Lynn is an example of someone living with a low self-image, because their innate self-confidence was broken.

In reference to Lynn's mental abilities, she has a very investigating and creating mind. She investigates projects rapidly because she is curious about many things. She gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but she soon must slow down and look at all the angles. She probably gets too many things going at once. When Lynn slows down, then she becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, she must slow down to do it. She then decides what projects she has time to finish. Thus she finishes at a slower pace than when she started the project. She has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. Her mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. She can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. Lynn can then switch into her low gear. When she is in the slower mode, she can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. She is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.

Diplomacy is one of Lynn's best attributes. She has the ability to say what others want to hear. She can have tact with others. She has the ability to state things in such a way as to not offend someone else. Lynn can disagree without being disagreeable.

Lynn is secretive. She has secrets which she does not wish to share with others. She intentionally conceals things about herself. She has a private side that she intends to keep that way, especially concerning certain events in her past.

Lynn is moderately outgoing. Her emotions are stirred by sympathy and heart rendering stories. In fact, she can be kind, friendly, affectionate and considerate of others. She has the ability to put herself into the other person's shoes. Lynn will be somewhat moody, with highs and lows. Sometimes she will be happy, the next day she might be sad. She has the unique ability to get along equally well with what psychology calls introverts and extroverts. This is because she is in between. Psychology calls Lynn an ambivert. She understands the needs of both types. Although they get along, she will not tolerate anyone that is too "far out." She doesn't sway too far one way or the other. When convincing her to buy a product or an idea, a heart rendering story could mean a great deal to her. She puts herself in the same situation as the person in the story, yet she will not buy anything that seems overly impractical or illogical. Lynn is an expressive person. She outwardly shows her emotions. She may even show traces of tears when hearing a sad story. Lynn is a "middle-of-the-roader," politically as well as logically. She weighs both sides of an issue, sits on the fence, and then will decide when she finally has to. She basically doesn't relate to any far out ideas and usually won't go to the extreme on any issue.

People that write their letters in an average height and average size are moderate in their ability to interact socially. According to the data input, Lynn doesn't write too large or too small, indicating a balanced ability to be social and interact with others.

I just have to sadly shake my head in frustration while deciding whether to laugh or cry when reading this story with blaring headlines about being robbed...

Enquirer News Update - Updated 6:11 p.m.

Local Bush/Cheney headquarters robbed


DOWNTOWN - Cincinnati's headquarters for the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign was broken into overnight.

Money and a sign were taken from the office, on Seventh Street near Court Street. The thieves got in by breaking out a window.

The office was also ransacked, officials said. It also houses other Republican organizations.

No one had been arrested.

...after reading this one:

Halliburton may keep disputed money

Report: Army may let company retain billions of dollars from Iraq work, despite auditors' questions.
October 22, 2004: 7:51 AM EDT


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Army is laying the groundwork to let Halliburton Co. keep several billion dollars paid for work in Iraq that Pentagon auditors say is questionable or unsupported by proper documentation, according to a report published Friday.

According to the report, Kellogg Brown & Root has so far billed about $12 billion in Iraq, and about $3 billion of that remains disputed by government officials.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes...Again



Take a look at the photo gallery at the Sacramento Bee for more of their photos. Fires are again on both sides and the winds blew all the smoke into the Valley and then died down leaving all the smoke behind.

It was a very eerie day today. The environment had an orange filter over it for the entire surreal day. This morning the sun was blood red. Health officials are advising people to stay indoors and not expose themselves to prolonged activity when outdoors. I haven't been effected much by all the smoke. I closed up all the windows and vents in time to keep it out of my lungs. Rain and wind are expected this weekend so it should clear out the smoke from the Valley and help put out the fires.

Rumors of my demise were slightly exaggerated. I was in labor for 5 days and finally gave birth to a bouncing kidney stone, followed by another 5 days of recovery.

Not an experience I wish to repeat again anytime soon, having an already intimate familiarity with gall stones. The gall stones of nearly 10 years ago were far more painful but it didn't last nearly as long. Within hours I was sedated in an emergency room and having my gall bladder removed the next day. These kidney stones took their sweet time and I did it at home with aspirin and a couple of vicodin.

The good news is that I've removed nearly all sodium from my diet and have noticed a marked improvement in my blood pressure and water retention.

So now the quest for employment continues...

Be careful what you ask for!

Guess we got a little more rain then we could handle...nearly 2 inches in 30 minutes. Loads of hail and flooded freeways, along with downed trees and a couple roof collapses on businesses. The State Capitol building also has some flooding.

No problems locally here in the neighborhood. In fact, the storm passed so quickly that the sun is out and now there's not a cloud in the sky. If you listen closely enough you can almost hear the trees gasping in orgasmic pleasure as the coating of smog and dust got washed off their very dry leaves and quenched their thurst.

Full story at KCRA-Channel 3

Here comes the rain!

Last week we had temperatures over 100 degrees. This week there are predictions of a possibility of snow in the high Sierras and we are currently having our first rain since February and it is a welcome gusher. Had about an inch of rain in the last hour and it is still going strong without any let up.

We're sure having some crazy weather patterns on Mother Earth this year. Wonder if there is something unusual in the pattern or location of Earth in relation to the Sun this year.

New Orleans. You were a grand city to visit. Hope I'll be able to do so again.

Hurricane tracking prediction as of 4pm today looks to be a near direct hit for N'awlins.

If you're anywhere near New Orleans, the Florida Panhandle or any of the flatlands in between....please don't try to be the tough guy who never blinks. Get out. Err on the conservative side. I promise, no one will laugh at you for doing so.

Lauren, I haven't kept in touch with you or the other old AOL Guides from that area for a few years, but I hope you are no longer living in N'awlins, and if you are, that you all have sense enough to get out.

Need a reminder of what is predicted for that area in a huge hurricane? Read this old Now with Bill Moyers transcript from Sept., 2002.

Here are a few pertinent excerpts:

DANIEL ZWERDLING: So basically the part of New Orleans that most people in the United States and around the world think of as New Orleans would disappear under water.

JOE SUHAYDA:: That's right. During the worst of the storm, most of this area would be covered by 15 to 20 feet of water.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Do you expect this kind of hurricane and this kind of flooding to hit New Orleans in our lifetime?

JOE SUHUYDA: Well, there-- I would say the probability is yes. In terms of past experience, we've had three storms that were near-misses that could've done at least something close to this.

WALTER MAESTRI: A couple of days ago we actually had an exercise where we brought a fictitious Category Five hurricane--

DANIEL ZWERDLING: The worst.

WALTER MAESTRI: --the absolute worst, into the metropolitan area

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Walter Maestri is basically the czar of public emergencies in Jefferson Parish. It's the biggest suburb in the region.

WALTER MAESTRI: Well, when the exercise was completed it was evident that we were going to lose a lot of people we changed the name of the storm from Delaney to K-Y-A-G-B... kiss your ass goodbye... because anybody who was here as that Category Five storm came across... was gone.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: The American Red Cross lists the worst natural disasters that might strike America. They worry about earthquakes in California, and tropical storms in Florida. But they say the biggest catastrophe could be a hurricane hitting New Orleans.

WALTER MAESTRI: New Orleans is, if you think about it, it's a soup bowl. Think of a soup bowl. And the soup bowl-- the high edges of the soup bowl-- is the Mississippi River. It's amazing to say, but the highest elevation in the city of New Orleans is at the Mississippi River.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Maestri says, imagine what happens if a hurricane like Andrew comes raging up from the Gulf:

WALTER MAESTRI: The hurricane is spinning counter-clockwise. It's been pushing in front of it water from the Gulf of Mexico for days. It's now got a wall of water in front of it some 30, 40 feet high. As it approaches the levies of the-- the-- that surround the city, it tops those levees. As the storm continues to pass over. Now Lake Ponchetrain, that water from Lake Ponchartrain is now pushed on to that - those population which has been fleeing from the western side and everybody's caught in the middle. The bowl now completely fills. And we've now got the entire community underwater some 20, 30 feet underwater. Everything is lost.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Remember the levees which the Army built, to hold smaller floods out of the bowl? Maestri says now those levees would doom the city. Because they'd trap the water in.

WALTER MAESTRI: It's going to look like a massive shipwreck. There's going to be-- there's going to be, you know-- everything that that the water has carried in is going to be there. Alligators, moccasins, you know every kind of rodent that you could think of.

All of your sewage treatment plants are under water. And of course the material is flowing free in the community. Disease becomes a distinct possibility now. The petrochemicals that are produced all up and down the Mississippi River --much of that has floated into this bowl. I mean this has become, you know, the biggest toxic waste dump in the world now. Is the city of New Orleans because of what has happened.

Important Critical Update from Microsoft:


Be sure to update ALL your Microsoft software including Windows, Office, Picture It, FrontPage, Publisher, Word, Excel, Access, etc.

Here's the link to Microsoft's new update tool that is supposed to aid in the update of all jpg-related software:



And be sure your anti-virus and firewall software are up to date. Yesterday my anti-virus software successfully blocked an attempt to infect my PC with a trojan. I haven't been able to track down the source or duplicate it after retracing all the sites I visited yesterday.

Major graphics flaw threatens Windows PCs
Published: September 14, 2004, 1:24 PM PDT
By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Microsoft published on Tuesday a patch for a major security flaw in its software's handling of the JPEG graphics format and urged customers to use a new tool to locate the many applications that are vulnerable.

The critical flaw has to do with how Microsoft's operating systems and other software process the widely used JPEG image format and could let attackers create an image file that would run a malicious program on a victim's computer as soon as the file was viewed. Because the software giant's Internet Explorer browser is vulnerable, Windows users could fall prey to an attack just by browsing to an untrusted Web site.

It's only fair!

Does this mean that we women are now in the right if we grab a disrupting right-wing jackass by the balls and lead him out of a political gathering?

I'm confident that the fair and balanced Fox News would be sure to get photos of such an incident if it were to occur.

Photo from Yahoo/AP

A member of the audience pulls a demonstrator's hair as he forces her out of an auditorium where President Bush was addressing a crowd of supporters at Byers Choice in Colmar, Pa. Thursday Sept. 9, 2004. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma)

Talk to the Animals

If we could talk to the animals, just imagine it
Chatting to a chimp in chimpanzee
Imagine talking to a tiger, chatting to a cheetah
What a neat achievement that would be

If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages
Maybe take an animal degree
We'd study elephant and eagle, buffalo and beagle
Alligator, guinea pig, and flea

We would converse in polar bear and python
And we could curse in fluent kangaroo
If people asked us, "Can you speak in rhinoceros?"
We'd say, "Of courserous, can't you?"

If we conferred with our furry friends, man to animal
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could walk with the animals, talk with the animals
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals
And they could squeak and squawk and speak and talk to us

Made another friend while out on my walk this morning. He was quacking his head off at me as I walked by so I stopped to exchange quacks with him. At one point he was even nibbling at my toes in my sandals.
He followed me all the way home so I went upstairs to fetch some birdseed for him. There's a broken sprinkler pipe in the carport that has created a mini pond. My webbed friend made himself at home there. He has a band around his ankle so he must be domesticated. I'm thinking about calling him "Aflac" and me Ms. Doolittle.

For all you folks out there with friends who have cats and cat boxes, I present this year's self-cleaning toilet model for your gift shopping wish lists.




Copyright Camilla Eriksson, MillanNet

Was just looking at my website statistics and was amused by this week's search phrases used to find the content on my website.

Phrases such as:

balcony garden photo gallery
japanese highschool gallery
gorgeous bathing beauties
first communion portraits
ladies bumblebee costume
topless hula photo
family guy sexy photo
japanese topless
lynn mom wife sexy
apartment balcony garden
mom is sexy
topless bicycle
humping mom
first communion photo
topless hula
elusive butterfly of love
flour dough projects


Never realized that having photos of cats in bumblebee costumes out on my balcony, humping my sexy mom's gorgeous beauty as she rides topless on a bicycle doing the hula through the garden would be such a hit with the search engines. LOL!

This too shall pass...


Things are better. Most of the fires are out or nearly out and the winds have died down considerably. We had winds of up to 45 to 50 mph on Friday and Saturday in some areas.

Local news reports that there's an arsonist (or two) in the area that is setting fires to businesses and houses along a nearby business district street in Citrus Heights, and an arsonist that is setting grassfires along the various freeways in both the Fairfield and Valley areas. I am wondering if it has anything to do with the case against some fire fighteres who were busted for going to porn parties while on duty recently.

I was able to have the windows open Sunday and Monday mornings to cool the place off. There's still a smell of smoke in the air but it isn't irritating my lungs like it did earlier in the weekend. Keeping everything closed up and using the central air fan and purifiers to filter the air helped a lot. I'm just not looking forward to the increased electric bill.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes...


Woke up coughing early this morning. There must of been a change in wind direction during the night. We've got grass and wild fires all around us on both sides of and in the Valley. The air is starting to get rather smokey and I'm already experiencing a little breathing problems so I've closed up all the windows, put towels under doors, have turned on my air purifiers and located my inhaler.

If the air quality (and my breathing) gets worse, I'll need to find somewhere else to stay until the fires are out.

Wildfires burn across Northern California

Eight horses were killed and more than a half dozen homes burned Friday as gusty winds fanned several wildfires across Northern California.

In Vacaville, 32 miles southwest of Sacramento, a 30-acre grassfire destroyed a farmhouse and several barns, killing eight horses. And a fire in nearby Davis jumped a highway, burned two homes and injured three people.

A wildfire in Calaveras County near Burson quickly spread to 1,500 acres in just a few hours, destroying four houses, numerous other buildings and forcing evacuations, said Kristine Ferreira of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Another blaze, near Anderson Springs in Sonoma County, burned through 75 acres before the wind gusts died down and fire fighters were able to start bringing it under control.

Mister T where are you?

A few nights ago while taking out the trash and picking up the mail, I was accosted by a young male cat who proceeded to relentlessly flirt with me and followed me upstairs. Soon as I opened the door he darted in and we began a battle of wits as he ran around the place with me scooping him up and attempting to put him outside. The little bugger was quick and always got back in before I could shut the door.

After slurping down a small bowl of milk he explored everything, climbing onto table tops, counters and keyboards demanding my attention. So, I made him a couple of scrambled eggs and he wolfed that down too. Satiated, we laid down on the couch and he serenaded me with his purring. We both got a bath, he licked every inch of my face and himself, and we played chase the string and fetch the paper wad. Felt my heart melting so quickly scooped him up for yet another attempt at eviction. This time it was successful.

Every couple of hours I opened up the door a crack to see if he was still there, only to find Mister T on the door jam awaiting entrance. He did his best to worm his way into my heart, to the point that I was considering buying a liter box so he could spend the nights inside. It didn't look like he belonged to anyone. He was very lean, but muscular and some idiot had wrapped a pipe cleaner around his neck as a collar. After removing the wire from around his neck, I kicked him out for the last time and went to bed.

It's been 3 days now with no sign of him anywhere. He briefly filled a void in my heart. It's been a long time since I had a cat that loved being snuggled and returned as much affection as he was given. I guess it is a good thing that he didn't come back. I was falling in love with Mister T, T for Trouble.

So far, it's a quiet, peaceful night here in Citrus Heights. We even had a beautiful sunset and balmy weather to celebrate the peace.

Sunset in the Valley as seen from my apartment front porch.




This is in sharp contrast to the night we had last night. For about two months now, we've suffered a new tenant 2 buildings and a street away from me. On a nearly nightly basis they have boisterously loud gatherings and music out on their patio that faces toward my living room. They usually start around 9pm and finish anywhere between 1am and 5 am. Neighbors have yelled out ignored complaints for them to lower the volume, take it inside, etc.

Last night it was especially bad. They must have had 20 people there for a party with strobe lights and what looked like an outdoor large screen TV on the patio showing music videos at full volume. It died down to a dull roar around 11pm and I thought we'd have an early night. Then the midnight hour came around and they all decided to hike up the music and sing happy birthday to someone. The next hour was filled with blood curdling screams as the birthday girl was chased and captured for a series of birthday spankings mixed with giddy, drunken cheers each time she opened gifts.

Finally fed up, I brought out a tape recorder and set it inside my kitchen window to record evidence of the ruckus for a complaint to the managers. Surprisingly, just as the tape ran out a whole lot of yelling, and swearing broke out for several minutes followed by a dozen cars fleeing the parking lot. Guess one of the neighbors called the police and the tenants/partiers were giving quite a bit of resistance. Drawn by the sounds of fighting, I got out to my balcony in time to see that the cops had called for backup and soon we had 6 police cars screeching up the entrance and storming over/ripping down the fence of the tenant's patio. Being that this response was being staged right outside my balcony, I stood out there and loudly applauded and thanked the police as they ran by to provide backup.

One of the tenants was carried out handcuffed while refusing to stand and cussing out the cops the whole way, and stuffed into the back of a police car. Not suprisingly, it was the same obnoxious voice I always hear above the rest when they have their nightly gatherings. Apparently one of the party people called for EMTs due to the roughing up the arrested tenant got for his resisting arrest and refusing to cooperate with the police. By this time, a second party goer was brought out in handcuffs and stuffed into a second squad car. The fire department drove up in a large hook and ladder engine in response to the EMT call and also parked in the roadway under my balcony, followed by a county ambulance vehicle.

I got to watch the EMTs do a check of the two arrestees while spotlighted by flashlights. The first guy's face was pretty bloody. Looked like he may have had a broken nose. I could hear cops repeatedly yelling for someone to get down on the ground followed by lots of f-yous, so this is probably a result of that battle. The guy was examined and slightly cleaned up by the EMTs before they all took off without him in their fire truck and ambulance. I tried to feel sorry for the guy, but he really brought it all on himself by breaking the noise rules of the apartment complex, ignoring neighbor complaints and refusing to cooperate with the police.

By the time all the interviews, searches, paperwork, and Miranda rights were all complete it was about 3:30 am before all the police cars drove off with their two arrestees.

All that drama kind of makes my piddly tape recording seem like a spit in the ocean so I'm deciding whether or not to go ahead with my complaint. If the managers don't do something about the neighbors after last night, it's time to give some serious consideration to moving since my lease is up for renewal this month. Hmm, maybe I'll bring that tape to my lease signing and see if they want to make some deals.

I'm just kicking myself that I didn't think about dragging out my video camera and filming the whole thing. Would have made great TV for Fox.

Oh my. What a huge void to fill. Julia Child is dead. I've been watching her cook on PBS for most of my life. She's the one who taught me how to cook. She will truly be missed and is, indeed, one of the nation's treasures.

Now Reuters is getting into the act. Here's a 3-page article about the language of choice controversy on Orkut and an explanation for the overwhelming attractiveness of Orkut to Brazillians.


Brazil Internet Craze Angers English Speakers
Sat Jul 17, 2004 08:03 AM ET

After reading today about Iraq's 130 degree temperatures this week, I'm not feeling so bad about the 4 days of 104 temps we've had here. The good news is we're heading into a cooling trend for the weekend when it should be only 98.

Feel free to send a little of those tropical storm clouds here.

Weather Report

By the way, in case you're wondering why I've been awake all night (waves to mom), it has been 84 degrees inside my apartment most the evening even though the weather people say it is currently 64 degrees outside. (That's baloney. I'm sitting around in shorts and a tank top and it's gotta be at least 70 or higher outside.) The air outside is absolutely dead; no breeze in sight and I've had all the windows and sliding door open all night with fans in the living room exhausting hot air to the outside and sucking in the cooler air in the bedroom. So far it's only cooled down to 79 degrees after a high of 95 inside at 6pm last night.

Usually the fan trick does it to cool off the place, but it just ain't kicking butt for some reason today and it's just too hot to sleep.

ROFLMAO!!! Matt Drudge, eat your heart out! You are no longer king of the false internet rumor mill!.




Web hoax fools news services
S.F. man fakes beheading, proves need for verification
Julian Guthrie, Bill Wallace, Chronicle Staff Writers

The faked beheading story broadcast on two Arab language television stations and sent out on international news services early Saturday was based on a grainy video that was made by three Bay Area residents as an experiment to find out how quickly erroneous information could be spread by the Internet.

The experiment had a delayed reaction, but when it came, it did so more dramatically than the people who made the video ever dreamed.

For almost an hour Saturday morning, the Associated Press reported that a 22-year-old San Francisco man, Benjamin Vanderford, had been beheaded in Iraq. The report of Vanderford's death was based on a 55-second video clip that Vanderford and two friends had faked and distributed via the Internet. The story also was picked up by the Reuters news service, and the grainy video was broadcast by two Middle Eastern television stations.

In an interview with The Chronicle hours later, two of the three filmmakers responsible for the clip said they had never expected it to be disseminated so widely, and they blamed the mass media for publicizing the stunt without making sure that the video was genuine.

The video, which is intercut with grisly photographs of war victims taken from a Middle Eastern Web site and features a recording of someone reading the Quran on its soundtrack, was originally made in May and posted to two file- sharing sites, Soulseek and Kazaa. It all but disappeared until its appearance this weekend on www.islamic-minbar.com, a Web site in Arabic that has posted communiqués from Islamic radical groups and videos of victims who were beheaded by militants.

Soon after it appeared on the Islamic-Minbar site, the video was picked up by the Associated Press in Cairo, Reuters News Service and two Middle Eastern television broadcasters. From there, it quickly spread through the media by being picked up by newspapers, radio stations and television news operations.

"We made the film in my garage in Pleasanton," said Martin, who described himself as an experimental musician. "We made the fake blood with corn syrup and red food coloring -- a recipe that we got on the Internet. We used a low- level cheap digital video camera. And if you look closely at the video, you see the supposed beheading is done with a dull vegetable knife and we used the wrong side. ... We did the whole thing in a couple of hours."

Kirchner said the concept behind the hoax was to show how easy it is to make something fake look real. She and her two fellow filmmakers, she said, wanted to challenge others to question the validity of material that is presented as fact.

"What is amazing,'' she said, "is the power of the Internet. One person gets the file, they share it with someone else. It eventually ends up on some Arab TV station and is believed as the real thing."

Human Complexity and Orkut

The Orkut community is a great example of what you are talking about regarding human complexity, Melissa. I was going to write something about my observations in my own blog today but wasn't really in the mood to get analytical about it until now (it is 3:00 am if that explains anything).

Orkut was started in California a few months ago and has grown to nearly 1.2 million members. 50% of those members are from Brazil while the remaining 50% is made up of much smaller percentages with the United States being the largest at 18%.

Orkut demographics as of today:



There's a big power play and argument going on in some of the Orkut communities. Complaints range from "rude weirdos posting in a foreign language I don't understand, make them speak English!" to "we're the majority and we'll speak in our native tongue if and when we want to."
In all the multi-lingual Orkut communities I participate in, I seem to be the only one making an effort to both understand and respond to anything written in Portuguese. I've been campaigning for both sides to knock it off and just enjoy the interactions with each other. I've rolemodeled my own efforts to do so by posting in both English and Portuguese and posting links to on-line translators that both the English and Portuguese speaking folks could use to talk with each other.

Some of the Brazilians say they choose to post in Portuguese because they are embarrassed by their poor English skills. I've suggested that the Brazilians write their posts in Portuguese and in English and verify their English by using one of the on-line translators to reassure themselves. I've also made the same suggestion of using on-line translators to the English-speaking posters. You don't need to speak the language to be able to use an on-line translator. It's not perfect, but it's better then what's going on now.

So far, neither side is making the attempt. They'd rather not speak at all to each other then make the tiny extra effort of copy and pasting something into/from a translator to ease the communication problem. They're all more interested in the fight about who was here first and whose rules will be followed and if you don't like it, start your own Orkut.

I don't get it. It deeply saddens me that our societies are becoming so closed off from each other in the midst of the global communication revolution. It is happening on both a national and individual basis, even between those that speak the same language. I'd much rather extend a handshake then a cold shoulder. Is it just me and the flower-child era I grew up in?

What is going on with humanity that makes us seek out only the company of our own like-thinking kind? It can't be brushed off as just human nature. According to historians, Early man went to great extents to seek out peoples outside their own familial communities to exchange ideas and DNA. Why are we now turning our backs on each other both as neighborhoods and nations? Is this the beginning of the end the scientists warned about in the 60's due to overpopulation and dwindling natural resources?

I like this quote.  Seems most appropriate for a lot of message board communities I monitor, as well as governments.
 
 

Looks as if my analysis is mostly correct.  It is indeed just a matter of time, and marketshare.  Hackers have already found a way to breech Firefox. 
 
I think I'm going to stay with what is working well for me thus far.  I use XP, have a firewall and anti-virus program, use Ad-ware, Spybot and Spyware Blaster and keep everything religiously updated while using safe computing practices.
 

Mozilla Flaw Lets Links Run Arbitrary Programs
 
 By Larry Seltzer July 8, 2004

Updated: The Mozilla Foundation has confirmed findings that its Mozilla and Firefox browsers are vulnerable to attacks using the "shell:" scheme, which execute arbitrary code under Windows without the user having to click a link.   
  
Security researchers are reporting another security issue in Web browsing under Windows, but this time Internet Explorer is not the culprit. The Mozilla Foundation's Mozilla and Firefox are reported as vulnerable. 

I wrote an email to each of the companies asking my question of them.  Got a response from Microsoft.  Am still waiting on one from the Mozilla folks.
 
My email:
 
Sorry if this is not in the right category of inquiry. I can't seem to find anything on your site that addresses the question.

So, what's the story behind this Mozilla/Firefox vs. IE controversy? Why is the department of Home Security recommending people convert? For the home user, is it something to be taken seriously or is this more about politics/marketing and stealing thunder from Microsoft. I know IE has a lot of weaknesses that are constantly being plugged. Is Firefox really that much better or is it that with the smaller marketshare, hackers haven't yet exploited its weaknesses yet and it's just a matter of time?

If there already is an established location on your website that addresses this, please direct me to it.

 
Here's MS's response.
 

Hello and thank you for contacting us at Microsoft.com. Criminal justice experts say cyber crime is growing faster than conventional crime. We are making considerable investments to increase the security of our products, as well as providing implementation guides and training based on industry best practices for security.
 
Microsoft is aggressively working to provide a comprehensive fix for all supported versions of Internet Explorer. This will be released once it has been thoroughly tested and found to be effective across the wide variety of supported versions and configurations of IE. In the meantime, we have provided the prescriptive guidance to help mitigate these issues at http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/settings.mspx and do not feel that switching to an alternative browser and giving up the functionality and compatibility of IE is warranted. If you have any other concerns, please feel free to write back.
 
Sincerely, Kathy Microsoft.com Customer Support