July 2004 Archives

For spammers. I had this schweet dream last night (obviously a reflection of my deep deep hatred for spammers) that the government made it illegal to post spam on websites. They offered money for bringing them spammers. I went to my computer and my inbox was full of spam posted to my blog and I had the last straw. I signed up to be Stephanie Lewis, Bounty Hunter.

So, I start witht the ones that are close to home. You know, the jerkos who post things like "interesting info" and "i really enjoyed your site." The anger inside of me churned as I poured over books about reading IP addresses and tracking people through their ISPs and stuff. So, the first one, I figured out was a guy in America named Gary. Yeah, you can see him now, sitting in his cold, dark basement laying the spam on people like it was some kind of sick joy. Laughing. Oh, it makes me sick.

So, I track Gary down, go to his door and say, "Are you Gary Johnson?" And, stupidly, he says, "Yeah, who wants to know?" With a tip of my cool detectivey hat, I grab his arm, twist it behind his back and drop him to the ground. "This is a citizens arrest. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can be held against you in a court of law..."

I tote Gary down to the government station, where the officer says, "Gary Johnson. We've been looking for this guy for years," then spits off to the side.

So, they pay me the big bucks and cover my travel expenses. They give me a secret inside list of the spammers they are trying to nail; some are on a red alert because they are scrambling to cross the border. Some already have crossed the border and need to get caught and brought back. And others, are more elusive, because they never spammed while on American soil. Turned out that Haiti and Puerto Rico were hubs for spammers because they leech tax monies off the U.S., but still get to have their own government rules. There were things in congress to fix the spam trade involving those spam-infested countries.

So, I continued on my journey of collecting spammers. Always feeling like I was doing my part to bring freedom and justice to all those who want to hold free and open discussions on a public forum. People who think advertisers should have to pay the big bucks in order to stick an ad in front of us. People who don't want to force others to register a login name and password just to have a simple conversation. The good people who want to maintain connections and discussions with people all across the world, even if they don't always agree.

Then I ride off into the sunset. *Sigh...tear* That was a beautiful dream.

Before I begin, I just wanted to say that I shampooed all of our carpets, rugs, & upholstery today. It was a HUGE (and I mean a Scottish HEE-YOU-GGGE!) undertaking. But, my house is so fresh it blows my mind. We've only been in this place for not quite four months. When we moved in I thought the carpet was gross and boy was I right. I shampooed the carpet twice (three times in gross spots) and the water came out like black. Ick. Anyway, I used the Rug Doctor (rented from the local grocery store) and it worked better than any carpet cleaning device I've ever used. Stains I tried to get out before, that I thought were totally set, came out with just a swipe or two of the Rug Doctor. So, I highly recommend it for any one who needs a little cleaner, fresher carpet.

Anyhoo, Josh e-mailed me today and showed me the object of his affection. I think it's a bit dorky, but who am I to judge? If it brings entertainment, who cares. My dad has also been wanting a horse and e-mailed me pictures of the one he was considering. So, he has his sights set on something. Then I got to thinking, what one toy would I get if I could? Then I remembered, the true of object of my affection. Yeah. Nice. That, and a beach house. Kewl. Hee hee.

I just wanted to write a post about my amazing husband, Josh. He has many admirable qualities, but the one I want to focus on today is his super creativity & love of web development. It's been awesome to see him make better & better websites through the years. He's willing to try things that haven't been done before, and even manages to take all the criticism people give him about it. He is willing to learn and put stuff out there that he created.

That, and he's always willing to help and encourage me with my own designs. We just finished (well...mostly finished) another site for my technology project. He helped majorly with a lot of the technical side of it and was really able to help me make my vision come to life.

The best part is, he really tries to adhere to web standards and write clean code so pages load fast and work in all browsers. I've seen him frustrated on more than one occasion to see him develop something that works in every web browser but Internet Explorer. So, we put together a little scoreboard. Here's a pic I took of Josh Web Devving, with the scoreboard behind him. As you can probably tell, I've been rooting for the home team! GO JOSH!!!

I was thinking recently about how important it is for schools to relate what they teach you to the real world as much as possible. I find that many of us leave school and kind of hit the fan of the real world. Ouch. What do you wish you had learned to better prepare you for life? I started compiling my own list:

- I wish I was bilingual. Living in MN where everyone spoke English made it seem totally pointless. That, and my language choices were German, Spanish, or French. The Spanish seems important to me...but the other two seem to be fading fast. I wish they offered Chinese at my school.

- I wish I learned about different kinds of savings, loans, stocks, money-market accounts and all that. I also wish I had learned more about credit cards and other "we'll give you money if we can take your first born child" kinds of schemes. Things like comparing rental to home ownership, looking at smart ways to buy cars, etc. would have also been really helpful.

- My counselor told me not to take the small engines class because I was a "college bound" student. So, I took Calculus instead. No offense to Calculus, but I wish I had learned how an engine works, how to fix my own car, etc. That would have made me so much more functional. I also wish I learned other homey kinds of things like how plumbing works, effective ways of building a solid structure, etc.

- Modern History. I learned from ancient civilizations up until World War II. Never was taught anything past that. I've kind of had to pick up pieces & books here and there to learn it on my own time. They just didn't teach it at my school.

- How to start a business and how to patent/produce an idea. I have an invention that's in my head -- how do I make it a reality?

Well, those are a few things for now anyway. It would be great if schools were more based in real-world experience. Maybe then the transition from school to real-life wouldn't be so painfully awkward. One good thing is that I feel comfortable in my ability to research. So, I've been able to start to answer some of the things that I listed above through these resources. It just would have been nice to know before I graduated high school.

I've been playing volleyball w/ the Grimes' and have totally been having a blast! At first I was nervous and pretty rusty since I haven't played since high school. Oh, and when I played at high school, it was always with boys & my job was to set the ball up for them so they could spike it and look cool.

Practice is like a good can of WD-40 when you're as rusty as I am. After a couple of games, I am starting to feel less sucky and am actually getting a few balls in there. I also noticed that I'm not bad at spiking. I got a couple of beautiful sets yesterday and was able to jump up and drop them in the hole. I didn't know I could do that since I was so used to setting all the time.

Oh...and for those of you have mocked my pathetic jumping ability...I think I'm a much better jumper when I'm going after something (like a ball) and am in the heat of competition. There were a couple of times where I beat out the tall guy on the other side of the net when we were both going after the ball. My friend Bob (who has never really seen me jump before) was like, "Wow! You're a good jumper!" I almost wept because I had always felt so inferior in that area. ;-)

Anyway, it's good to be back in the game!

to hate Bush. It's like this trendy little thing here. Yesterday alone I heard at least five off handed remarks about how much Bush is hated...in contexts where government and politics weren't even concerned. Just miscellaneous mumblings about "...or like our president..." followed by a roll of the eyes. Or when we were learning how to create databases on palm pilots. Several of the teachers realized that they could edit the presidential database and changed Bush's "living" status to "deceased." Then they beamed it to me thinking I would chuckle and laugh and participate in their gantor. I just looked at them and said, "You do know that Bush is NOT dead, right?" They gave me a chuckle like "hee hee...it was a joke."

I don't want to joke about my president. Regardless of if I support him or not...I don't want to joke about him in that light context (especially not in front of my colleagues).

I had a student last semester jokingly say to me, "Mrs. L, can I make a sculpture of George Bush's head then smash it after you grade it???" Obviously there is some Bush hatred going on in her household and in the school yard. So, I asked her why she hated Bush and she was like, "He's just an idiot." That's all she could give me. Real thoughtful. Now, I realize that she's just a middle schooler picking up her parent's beliefs (I did the same thing). But it does point to a larger issue.

Why do we hate Bush? I don't want to start a list on all the reasons we should hate Bush, because then I'm just going to start a list of reasons why we should hate anyone...including me...including you. It does seem to me that, despite what Bush does, he can't seem to win. Everything he does is wrong.

I think for many people, they don't care who Bush is or what he does...they just hate him. And they don't just hate him, they hate everything he does. That makes no sense to me. Even when there were presidents in office whom I disagreed with, they still did things here and there where I was like, "Hey...way to go!" It seems that we don't reason through things anymore. It's easier to have blind hatred than to be informed.

This new coffee house just opened up right across the street from my house (I think it's called The Coffee Bean...but I'll have to confirm that later). Anyhoo...the people who work there are super nice and have cute kids (one of whom just got a six week old kitty). Problem is, their coffee is good and their caramel is delicious. For those of you who know me, you realize this is a serious problem. I almost had to go into rehab for my caramel addiction...twice.

They also have this yummy yummy gelato. (For those of you who were thinking gelato... I'm just not that geeky. Sorry to get your hopes up.) Anyway, this is some serious smooth and creamy goodness. Cold Stone, Ben & Jerry, and Dreyers hold nothing up against this stuff.

I think that this place gets their gelato from the amazing Dolce Spazio Dessert Cafe in nearby Los Gatos. Though I have yet to go there, I feel inspired to begin tasting their 60+ flavors. I'm sure they will be sublime.

So, thank you very much, Mr. Gelato
For helping me escape just when I needed to
Thank you-thank you, thank you
I want to thank you, please, thank you

Wow. I'm sharing my testimony with the Jr. High and High School groups at Church tomorrow. I don't think I've ever been this nervous about being in front of a group before. I mean, I've shared my testimony before, but it's always been in with small groups in really comfortable settings and really relaxed and stuff. I hope people don't get bored, I hope I don't ramble too much, and I hope God shines through more than me. That's probably my biggest fear in life...that I will lead others astray. Oh God, please calm my heart and be in that room tomorrow. Guide my words and my heart and...well...everything. The deepest desire of my heart is that you are glorified.

So...I went to my Mary Kay lady's website to get some more moisturizer and found that she had redesigned it. For those of you who don't know, I use Safari as my web browser (and totally swear by it). I've also been getting the smack-down from Josh about designing websites according to web standards. Anyway, we all know that Microsoft's Internet Explorer totally sux0rz when it comes to these standards. Therefore, I totally laughed when I saw this *ah-hem* very thoughtfully made *ah-hem* site tell me about using web standards.

Oh...you can't even tell me what web browser I'm freakin using. And, don't tell me about web standards then direct me towards a IE download. What a joke. ROFL

Well, I brought my lovely iBook into the Apple store today only to discover that she's having logic board malfunction. Luckily, she's covered in the serial number range that means some free fixin. So, I left her on the genius bar (did you know you have to make appointments now?) for her long waiting period, then inevitable surgery. Trouble is, they guessed about six business days to repair her. Woe is me!

On another note, I'm really enjoying my technology class. I've met some interesting folks and have been able to get a good deal done on the project I'm working on. My goal is to implement ePortfolios into my course curriculum. We are supposed to create a project plan, make a website about it, make a video, and a poster. So, I have my hands full for the next few weeks! I think it's going to turn out well. I like technology because I get to create, it's pretty challenging for me, and it gives me a connection to Josh. When it comes to technology, he's so my night in shining armor. Just call him Josh "Shiny Knight" Lewis. Hopefully he won't think I'm too annoying when I keep asking him how to edit this PHP!

Well, my iBook is having serious issues. I have to bring it to the Apple store tomorrow to see how many boo-ko dollars it's gonna cost me to get it fixed. It's doing a funky random monitor-freak out thing. Only, I don't know that it's the monitor, but is quite possibly a hard drive problem. I have no idea. So, hopefully the geniuses can take a peek at her for me to see what the deal is. This is really bad timing because I'm in the middle of a technology class. My principal is being kind enough to meet me at school tomorrow morning to give me one of the school laptops to use for the rest of the summer. So, if I wasn't stressed enough by this tech class, the lack of my sweet sweet girly of a laptop isn't helping me any.

On another note, I talked on my last post about how I dislocated my pinky. I don't remember exactly how I did it because I was so involved in the game. It wasn't until I started having an asthma attack and had to sit out that I realized that, hey, my pinky also hurts. And look, it's bending the wrong way and is getting all purple. Kewwwwweeeeeeel. So, I went to the doctor and the doc asked me how I hurt my pinky. I said that I was playing a sport with some kids. "Oh? What sport were you playing???" I hesitated, too embarrassed to tell her the true sport I was playing. I considered saying something simple like baseball or football...but that would just be lying.

"Um. I was playing Chair Bomb."

She looked up at me like I was some kind of psychotic creative person who either invents these bizarro games or is dumb enough to listen to the people who do create them. She nodded, which seemed to say to me, "You're lucky that you only injured your pinky...playing something crazy like Chair Bomb."

She asked me to explain it. "Well, there are two chairs on opposite sides of the court. One team gets a water balloon and has to get it to break on the opposing team's chair. They can run until someone of the opposite team tags them. Then they have three seconds to get the balloon to someone else on their team. If they don't, the other team gets the balloon. If you break a balloon, the other team gets to start with a new one. The other team can also intercept your ball and make a run for it."

"Sounds like a fun game." She said in such a tone that I knew she didn't mean it. How could anyone consider anything called "Chair Bomb" to be a legitimate sport???

Then I had to get my finger x-rayed. When I went in, the guy asked me how I injured my finger. "Just playing with some friends." I hoped that would be the end of it. But no...the inevitable question came, "Oh yeah? What were you playing?"

I sat there horrified by his endless curiosity. I looked up at the x-ray machine where there was a sign that said, "DO NOT USE IF PREGNANT." I wondered if x-ray machines were somehow related to roller coasters, since pregnant women weren't allowed to ride either one (don't worry, I'm so not pregnant...although Josh's mom rode a roller coaster a couple weeks before he was born, but that's neither here nor there).

I attempted to avoid x-ray man's question by simplifying my response, "Just a game my friend made up." Stare at ground. Avoid eye contact. Anything to stop the questioning!

"Sounds cool. What's it called???"

"..." *Admit defeat* "...Chair Bomb."

"Chair Bomb? That's one I've never heard before. With a name like 'Chair Bomb,' you're lucky that all you did was dislocate your pinky."

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

I exited the hospital with one of those big metal brace thingies. It made my finger feel better, but the problem was that it made it challenging to type. Of course I had to injure my pinky during my technology class, the class that requires an insane amount of typing. And that stupid big metal thing keeps HITTING THE CAPS LOCK KEY SO ALL OF MY WRITING MAKES IT LOOK LIKE I'M SCREAMING. GOOD TIMES.

I don't know what the deal is, but I've been feeling increasingly clutzy and "stupid" blonde lately. I'm seeing this by a select choice of actions that have occurred recently:

1. Two days ago, when introducing myself to someone in my class, I hit his can of soda & knocked it onto his lap.
2. While eating my noodle salad, I hit the bowl and knocked it across the table.
3. When I went to leave the lunch table, I picked up my lunch box & walked away, not realizing that I hadn't zipped it up. This dumped my soda can, secret cookies, and tupperware container across the room. Grrrr...
4. While playing a sport with the Jr. High kiddos, I dislocated my pinky.
5. I couldn't find the elevator at the Dr.'s office, even though i was standing right next to it.

Anyway, it struck me that I have a fear of getting stupider (more stupid?) as I get older. What if I am really developing a clutziness & stupidity? Can I avoid this? When I got home yesterday, I picked up one of my psychology books (as opposed to a surfer magazine) so I could ingest something into my brian that has an extensive vocabulary. Maybe this can at least slow down the process of Stephanie stupification.

Josh and I just got cell phones & we've been pretty interested in checking out the features and everything. I was at a 4th of July par-tay yesterday and whenever my phone would go off, I was completely unaware. Other people would be like, "Hey Steph, isn't that your phone?" And I'd be like, "Ummm...I don't know. Let me check."

So, the search for an obvious ringtone is on. Josh and I have been clicking around trying to find the perfect ringtone. You can't get just any sound, because the sound has some bearing, some fingerprint, on who you are. As John Cusack said in High Fidelity, "It's not who we are, but what we like."

So, I think Josh got some Nintendo thing. I have so far selected First Date by Blink-182 and am honing in on Justin Timberlake's Senorita. I am frustrated that most of the music I actually super-dooper love (Sixpence, Joni Mitchell, Dave Matthews, Yo-Yo Ma, Billy Joel, Lisa Loeb) is not featured. Other songs that I love, just sounded too stupid to be played on a polyphonic midi (such as Somewhere Over the Rainbow). I would really like to get Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice and Cake's Never There, but alas, I cannot find them for my particular phone. Sigh.

Man, this weekend alone I despammed my blog over 350 times. It's really starting to piss me off. Especially all the sneaky ways that people spam. Like, they'll put in someone else's legitimate e-mail address as their own. Or they'll write stupid comments like "thanks for the great info" or "nice site." Grrrrrrrr! And it's usually crap related to one of the following categories: casinos, sex anything, great loans or money making schemes. There was even one on my site that was advertising "extreme rape" porn sites. What the heck is that and why is it even legal??? Just looking at the url made me ill.

Another thing I loathe about spammers is that it costs them no money to post on my site (or anyone else's). So, it's like free advertising. That makes it even easier, say, to completely load my comments with crap. I don't think much of the spam ever gets through to my viewers though, it usually just pisses me off big time and then I spend several hours of my time deleting it all. I look at spam the same way as phone calls to my house -- if you can't advertise in a decent non-annoying way, you don't deserve my business no matter how great your deals are. Bastards.

I wish there were some serious regulations regarding spam. Problem is, the world wide web is world wide and it would take some kind of l33t haxor world power geeks to monitor it all. (Although, that would be kind of a cool job title.) The punishment should be that the person who was spammed gets to kick the spammer as many times as they posted on their site. It could be like a birthday party spanking line, except kicking really hard with intent to injure. If I could kick all the people who spammed my site, I would feel better somehow. I may have some guilt about it later (as I considered Jesus' call to forgive), but would probably not think about that until much much after the bliss and elation of kicking them.

Some call him Henson.

It all started several years ago when Josh and I decided to confront Henson with his food-stealing and trash-digging sins. We sat both him and the cat down and shared with them their sinful condition and how they could dedicate their lives to the Lord and be fully forgiven and saved.

The cat was very responsive and repented immediately. She has since been living her life as a servant, and has been exhibiting the fruits of the spirit daily.

The dog, on the other hand, would have none of this religious stuff and has since increased his sinful ways. These including barking at people when they hug, getting stuck in the blinds while people pass by on the sidewalk, and digging on the carpet and couch cushions trying to make them somehow more comfortable. His idols include Piggy and Squeaky Bear. Both are regularly covered in drool as he tries to wedge them in your arm so you will be forced to throw them for him.

The sin has escalated to a point that Josh and I are extremely alarmed. A few days ago, Henson managed to get a stick of butter off the table and was scarfing it down quickly to avoid getting caught. I came around the corner and there he was, sucking the thing down his throat whole like a snake might eat a furry woodland creature. Our eyes met, and I saw the pain and guilt he has been harboring for quite some time. When I walked over to him, his eyes grew fierce and he growled at me (trying to protect his precious precious butter). This ended with me grabbing him by the scruff of then neck and launching him into the garage. He barked in anger for sometime (I think he said something about "injustice" and "right to a trial" and "cruel and unusual"). Eventually he stopped barking and I let him back into the house. I forgave his sins, yet again, and looked sadly on his now slightly fatter body.

Problem is, I don't see him repenting anytime soon. I fear that his life will end tragically and he will be unsaved. Sometimes I see him dreaming (probably about Piggies and Squeaky Bears dipped in butter) and mumblling to himself, "My precious...my precious."

I told Josh about my dream last night and he was like, "Oh man, you totally have to blog about that." I didn't want to because I thought it was corny. But, we went shopping, and I bought past my quota in board shorts. So, this post is in payment to Josh for the error in my spending. :-)

I said before that we were playing Battlefield 1942 last night. When I got home way late (after the freaky car flippage thing), I had a weird dream.

There was this war on U.S. soil, particularly the Bay Area, and a bunch of peeps were sent out to fight the enemy (don't remember where they were from). Camille was my partner & we got sent off on a mission in the Foothills, which didn't go through because the people we were supposed to attack never showed. But, we did see some of the enemy obviously preparing an attack. We didn't have permission from our commanding officer to attack, but they were obviously going to do some harm, so I made the decision that we were going to attack.

They had several guys in a tank, and one guy doing assault on top of the tank. I told Camille to snipe for me while I went down w/ my anti-tank rocket launcher. I hid from the enemy until I got close enough. Then I walkie-talkied Camille (with a secret language we had invented) to snipe the top guy for me & I would shoot my rocket launcher as soon as he was dead (I remember the secret language code for "shoot" was "dadoo").

She shot the guy in the head (her preferred shooting locale) and he dropped. I immediately fired at the tank. I panicked to reload, while the tank gun-thing was turning to shoot me. I ran along side the tank while reloading and shot the tank one more time, which was enough to make it inoperable.

Then, the top opened and a guy came out. I shot him with my handgun, then threw a grenade in the tank. I turned up the hill and took off running. Camille met me and we came upon a small farm with horses. I yelled at her, "Give me your rope!" She was like, "Why!?! What are we doing!" I said, "JUST TRUST ME!"

Then I prayed, "God, let me pick the right horse." I chose a chestnut horse with a slight sway in the back (which made me think it had been broke to ride). I tied the rope around his halter and jumped on w/ Camille behind me. We took off into the foothills until it was safe.

Camille was like, "You just stole somebody's horse!" And I responded, "Camille, we're in a war. We need some transportation & this is what we're keeping until we find something better." She nodded.

That was my dream. Isn't that totally bizarre? What a strange strange night I had.

Josh, Neal, Camille & I played Battlefield last night & had a great time. I think Camille & I are actually getting pretty good at the game! For chicks anyway. Camille came over after & we watched Mystic River, which was pretty cool. Except, if that movie's not creepy enough, the night got even creepier (and I'm not saying that just because arachnophobic Joshua had a spider crawl up his arm).

So, I'm bringing Camille home pretty late. We pulled onto 85 north from Stevens Creek and there was what I thought to be a rear view mirror in the road. I swerved to avoid it & thought for a split moment about how odd it is to see a rear view mirror on the road. Then, I looked up, and to the left of the on ramp was an old school VW Beetle flipped upside down. There was smashed glass and papers blowing everywhere. There were no lights on, and other cars just kind of drove on by.

I looked at it and was like, "Do you think there's someone in there?" I mean, it freaks me out to think that someone could be dying on the side of the road and everyone just drives by, figuring that "someone else will help" or "I'm busy enough as it is." So, Camille calls 911 on her cell. We take the next exit & circle around to see if there's anyone in the car. By the time we get there though, a fire truck & several police cars have already arrived (talk about service). We pulled over & told them that we called 911 & they asked us a few questions about it.

Weird thing is, there was no person to be found. They had guys with flashlights scanning the ditches & stuff looking for signs of life. By the looks of the car, I don't think anyone could have walked away from that without some serious cuts & bruises (at least). But, the police had no info of anyone calling for a tow truck or anything. There was simply no one in sight.

It was so bizarre. When I dropped Camille off at home, she looked at me and said, "Well, it's always an adventure hanging out with you." At first I thought, "Not really, I'm pretty boring." Then I remembered that our last hang out ended in chasing a kitty cat down the highway. And other times have included eating at a freakish restaurant where we thought this crappy t.v. was going to fall on us. Or running into lesbians at Denny's (which Neal thought was just a "guy with saggy pants").

Always an adventure. Yup. That's me.